


The New Avenger

by Pearl09



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst, But if you do then there might be some, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, Mild Language, No Smut, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Reader Has Powers, Reader-Insert, Slow Burn, idk if you'd call it fluff, like stupid slow, most likely fire, reader is an inhuman, you would not believe how slow
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-13
Updated: 2019-04-16
Packaged: 2019-04-22 10:24:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 52
Words: 43,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14306673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pearl09/pseuds/Pearl09
Summary: You work as an agent at the government's organization known as S.H.I.E.L.D. You thought you'd be doing minor field work and manning a desk for the rest of your life. But when the terrigenesis happens, your small life turns upside down.Follows a new superhero in an edited timeline of the MCU





	1. Agent

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you all for reading this! It means a lot. I'll try and update as often as I can, but I don't think there will be a set schedule. I had to edit the timing of some events to fit my story, but most of it should still be in order. Enjoy!

“(Y/N).”

You jump, startled out of your daydream. You look towards the person behind the voice.

“You’re not paying attention again, are you.”

You shake your head. “No, sir.”

Agent Coulson sighs. “At least you’re being honest.”

“I’m sorry sir, but these meetings always get boring.” You had just gotten back from a small field mission, and had to sit through a debriefing. They were your least favorite part about the job.

“I know they bore you, Agent (Y/N), but it’s necessary.”

“Well, can necessary be done and over with? I have a stack and a half of paperwork I need to fill out after that mission, and sitting here doing nothing wastes time I could be working on clearing that out.” You give him a pleading look, trying to convince him to let you go.

He gives in. “Fine, we were pretty much done anyways. But I better see you working on that paperwork, and not daydreaming again.” 

You stand up and give a small salute. “Yes, sir.” You smirk as he shakes his head and turns to leave – you loved doing little things like saluting to him because of how much it bothers him.

After you managed to get out of the meeting, you go back to your desk. It’s a small cubicle with a hard chair, a brand new computer, and a stack and a half of paperwork. You had not been kidding when you told Coulson the amount earlier, as you had gone by your desk before the meeting. Every field mission ended with paperwork that could take the entire length of the mission to complete. 

You sit down at your desk and sigh, taking the first paper off of the top of the stack. You lean back in your chair as you read through it, filling out what needs to be filled out, editing what needs to be edited. You get through the first half with no issues, but then you get distracted.

“Hey, (Y/N), good to see you’re back!”

You turn towards your coworker, Ivan. “Hey, Ivan. It’s good to be back. But you know, all they send me on are little things, so there’s no real danger of me not coming back.”

He nods his head. “True, but you never know what could go wrong. There are plenty of small missions that go wrong. Like Oswald’s.”

You raise an eyebrow. “What happened to him?”

“You didn’t hear about it?”

You shake your head and gesture to the paperwork on your desk. “I haven’t done much of anything yet since getting back.”

He leans against the wall of your cubicle. “His mission was to retrieve a suitcase. There were some sort of crystals in it, I can’t remember what exactly. But there were people who didn’t want that suitcase in our hands. So, they ambushed him. Now the suitcase is in the bottom of the ocean, and his funeral is in a few days. Poor fellow.”

You furrow your brows. “He was killed over a suitcase? I mean sure, I never really liked him, but still … Dying over a suitcase is not the way I’d want to go.”

“Yeah, and now I’m stuck doing all the paperwork from it.” He stops, thinking, and shakes his head. “I don’t think I will ever understand the Director’s obsession with suitcases.”

“Agent Ivan, Agent (Y/N). Don’t you have work to do?”

“Agent Hill. Sorry, I was just informing (Y/N) about the accident they missed.”

She gives the two of you a stern look. “Agent (Y/N) could have caught themselves up on it if they read their emails. Go back to your paperwork, both of you. I expect all of it to be finished before you leave.”

“Yes, Ma’am.” You turn back to the daunting paperwork as Ivan goes back to his, and settle down into your chair to finish it.


	2. Same Old Same Old

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys for over 50 hits in the first couple of hours! I promise we'll get to some real story soon.

Work goes by like normal for you for the next few weeks. Some days you are buried in paperwork, which means either filling it out after someone's mission ended badly, or just doing background checks on people.

Some days you spend the entire time on your computer, going through video feed from street cameras and store cameras, either searching for people, or editing the footage to remove someone who had been on a secret mission. 

You really liked the days where they send you out of your cubicle and up to the air control tower. You liked being up high in the air and telling everyone if they were safe to land or not, and directing any commercial planes nearby to avoid any areas they had to. Besides actually being out in the field, this was your favorite thing to do.

As for field missions, you weren’t being sent on any at the moment. Each mission had a specific set of skills needed, and there were no missions with your particular skill set. They were few and far between, because out of all the skills you could have had, you got that you are great at spying. But not many missions needed someone to gather information or follow people. Most of them were retrieving items or making sure some government official was safe. So you were stuck inside.

While not being sent out to the field was kind of boring to you, at least you knew you were safe. The only organization stupid enough to try and take on S.H.I.E.L.D. would have been Hydra, but they’ve been gone now for ages, right? So you accept your fate and try not to think about anything other than your work.

Unless Ivan was around.

Ivan liked to talk. More than average for this kind of job. Sometimes you welcomed the distraction, but other times that’s all he was. Like right now.

You’re trying to edit a recording of a mission that went south, when he comes in to ask you questions. 

“Hey, (Y/N), how are you today?”

You sigh, because you need to get the work done soon. “I’m fine, Ivan.”

He’s silent for a few seconds, until he realises you aren’t going to say anything else. “I had a question for you.”

You don’t answer him, still trying to focus on your work.

He continues anyways. “Did I see correctly that your name is up in the hall downstairs?”

Your hands freeze over the keyboard. The names in the hall are of all the agents that died in the line of duty.

You take a deep breath to calm yourself, and say towards your computer, “Yes. It was my parents. They – were caught in a crossfire. The plane went down in a giant explosion. There were no survivors.”

You could cut the tension in your cubicle with a knife. 

“Oh. I’m – I’m sorry for bringing it up.”

You shake your head, still not looking at him. “It’s okay, you didn’t know. But now that you do, please, don’t bring it up again.”

“Understood.” He leaves your cubicle. 

You sit still for a few minutes, staring at your computer. You take deep breaths, calming yourself down. It’s been quite a long time since your parents died, but it still gets you sometimes if you’re caught unawares. You knew how much good they had done before their untimely death, and that was what had driven you to try for this job. You hope your parents are proud of you, wherever they are.

The only thing you wish is that you could go out in the field more.

But wishes don’t come true. You learned that a long time ago.

You finish calming yourself down and finish editing the recording, wanting to head home as soon as you could. You had to stop and get some more vitamins at the store, and really didn’t want to see Ivan any more today. Hopefully they’ll let you go early if you finish it.


	3. U.F.P. (Unidentified Flying Person)

You were not allowed to leave early. You had to edit another recording before you could leave. You still had to stop at the store too, to buy some vitamins. You were almost out of all the ones you usually get. 

At the store, you see the newspaper fresh off the press. It’s headline reads  _ Stark Announces the End of Weapons Sales.  _ The one next to is says  _ Mysterious Flying Man Spotted: Are We Not Alone in the Universe?  _ You sigh and take a copy of each, then go over to the vitamin section. You quickly find all the ones you needed, and then go over to the refrigerators on the wall and take a few energy drinks out. 

You pay and make it back to your car, starting the engine before you get the phone call. 

“Agent (Y/N), we need you to come in.”

“I saw already. I’ll be there in fifteen.”

“You have ten.”

The person hangs up. You throw your phone into your bag and pull out of the parking lot, and take the backroads to get back to work as fast as you can. 

When you arrive, the lobby is packed with people hurrying around. You don’t think you’ve ever seen it this busy. You take the stairs up to your floor, but before you can reach your desk you are stopped.

“Agent (Y/N).”

“Agent Hill. What are my orders?”

“We need you searching for every newspaper, magazine, blog, and anything in between that is talking about the flying man. Send them over to Agent Stan, he’ll contact the field agents to buy out the physical copies and send offers to all the online article owners to compensate them taking the article down.”

“Yes Ma’am. Have we identified the object yet?”

“Agent Coulson is out now speaking with someone who may know information. That is currently our only lead.”

You nod and head past her to your cubicle. You set your bag down on the table and dig through the vitamin bottles to find one of the energy drinks. You crack it open and chug the whole thing down. After a full day of work and the work you know is ahead of you, you’re going to need it. 

When you login to your computer, you immediately open a chatroom with Stan. You tell him the name of the paper you found in the store, as well as a blog that had pushed a notification about it to your phone. You find one of the many computer programs that S.H.I.E.L.D. uses to sweep the internet, type in a few keywords, and let it run. You sit back in your chair, and whenever an article comes in, you read it over to make sure it’s about this event, and then send it over to Stan. When that program finishes, you start another program.

Agent Hill comes into the office after a few hours. “Agent (Y/N), how is the search going?”

You turn around in your chair to face her. “It’s going. A lot of people found out about this, so when I send them over to Stan, someone else had already found it and written another article on it. So I don’t know how much longer it will take.” Your computer dings with a new article. You turn back around to look at it.

“When you are done, they need you in weapons. Something about an idea you had? Take your time though, they can wait.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

Another article comes in, and you think it’s going to be a long time before you can make it over to the people in weapons.


	4. Fish Oil Ruins Everything

You finally finished running all the searching programs without them finding anything at six in the morning the next day. You have one energy drink left. You drink it now, knowing what the people at weapons can be like. 

Walking down the halls, you see that everyone seems to be at the same level of tiredness. The lobby is definitely not as busy as when you came back to work yesterday. Weapons was on the opposite side of the building, so it takes you a few minutes to walk over there. 

When you do make it to the lab, you are greeted by many energetic faces, too energetic for you at this moment.

“Hey, (Y/N), you finally made it!”

You stifle a yawn. “Hey, Brooke. Yeah, sorry, that assignment took forever to finish. Before you start, I have to ask, how do you have so much energy right now?”

She winks at you. “It’s a secret coffee recipe. That may include so much caffeine that I will crash hard tonight. But I can worry about that later. Right now, we need to talk.”

“Right. What did you need me here for?”

“I mean, nothing much. I was just making some weapons designs with some of your suggestions, and thought you’d want to see.”

“Sure, I can take a look. I hope you don’t expect me to use them all though.”

She waves her hand, brushing that aside. “There’s so many I wouldn’t ever expect you to. I’m sure someone will though.” She leads you to a table with some bracelets on it. “This is the first item I was working on, and the only one that’s made it out of the blueprint stage. It’s the taser cuffs.”

You pick one up and flip it around in your hand, inspecting it. “Wow, I really didn’t think that was going to be possible. I don’t think I’d have a use for it, but there’s gotta be someone who’d use it.”

Brooke laughs. “Yeah, someone indeed. A certain Agent may have been here earlier and seemed really interested in them.”

You raise your eyebrows in question. “Really? Who?”

“That’s classified.”

You shake your head. “Well, I’m glad your designs will get out there for someone to use then, even if I won’t use it.”

“Ooh, I know what you can use!” She grabs a blueprint off of a desk full of parts. “I started this, but it’s nowhere near finished. Take a look for yourself!”

The blueprint was covered in math and pictures you couldn’t quite understand. From the looks of it though, it was going to be a watch that also doubled as a tracker.

“That actually does sound like something I could use.”

“And then, even when you aren’t on a mission, you can wear it and it will pass for a nice, normal watch.”

“Thank you for thinking of this! Let me know when you finish it, I will definitely try out.”

“Of course!”

She shows you a few more things she was working on, until seven thirty hits and you excuse yourself.

“Hey, Brooke, I’m sorry, but it’s seven thirty and I really should go take my vitamins so that I don’t mess up my schedule for it. I mess it up enough by not bringing them with me on missions, so I should keep to my schedule as much as I can.”

“Yeah, of course! I’ll call you back when the watch is finished. I’ll see you later.”

“Bye.” You walk all the way back to your cubicle and grab your bag, as well as a paper cup, and take them to the bathroom.

You splash some cold water on your face to try and help wake you up, but you only manage to make your face wet. Giving up, you take a few of the vitamins out of their bottles and swallow them. You save the fish oil for last because it's the biggest. 

You throw one of them into your mouth and take a drink, swallowing it. As you start to put the cap back on it, you double over, putting a hand to your stomach. You had the vitamins on an empty stomach, but you thought it was just a myth that you should have them with food. You straighten up, mind set on getting food. 

You turn to face the sink again, but you can’t turn. A strange black substance is crawling up your legs, immobilizing you. It starts to form on your hands, and you drop the fish oil pills. They scatter everywhere as the black substance finishes its shell around you, rendering you unconscious.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well isn't the reader in for some fun now! >:)  
> I'm sure if you've seen SHIELD you know what's going on. If not, I guess you'll have to wait and see!  
> Thanks for all of the support, it really means a lot to me.


	5. Is it Hot in Here, or is it Just You?

You wake up to a bright light. Your first thought is that you died. 

But then you realize you were just in the S.H.I.E.L.D. hospital. You finally regain enough consciousness for your other senses to work, and you can hear the beeping of the heart monitor next to you. The door to your room is closed, but you can hear the soft scuffling of people out in the hallway. You move your arm slightly, and another beeping noise starts to go off. Someone opens the door and walks in.

“Agent (Y/N). You’re up.”

You quickly sit up, not wanting to be rude. “Director Fury, sir.” You bring your hand to your head, as the quick movement had made you dizzy. 

“You don’t have to worry about formalities here, Agent. You’re awake, which is all that matters.”

You slowly lower yourself back onto the bed as you start to remember what had happened before you woke up in the hospital. Your eyes grow wide in fear.

“Director, what exactly happened?”

He holds up something in his hand – it’s a pill, and it looks like the fish oil you had taken. “While you have been unconscious, we had teams analyzing everything. Apparently, when Agent Oswald lost the suitcase in the ocean, it opened, and its contents dissolved. The fish absorbed the now dissolved crystals, they were caught, and then turned into fish oil pills. Since your accident, we’ve had a few more accidents popping up all over the country. And the same brand of fish oil pills has been found at every single site.”

You look at him, confused. “A few more accidents? Exactly how long have I been out? And what was the black – thing?”

“You’ve been out for about two weeks now, Agent (Y/N). Honestly, we weren’t sure you were going to wake up. Normally, people who have a fever of over 120 degrees fahrenheit don’t survive.” He walks over to the monitor and angles it so you can see it. “But you’ve been, and still are, at 500 degrees fahrenheit. And you look fine.”

You stare at the screen in shock. You can’t bring yourself to say anything.

“The really strange part is, it’s all internal. Or so the doctors say. You feel normal to the touch. You don’t have this ‘glow’ that some objects have when they burn. Your skin hasn’t half melted off. Nothing is wrong with you. Except this internal temperature of 500 degrees fahrenheit.”

The door opens. Someone else comes in as you are trying to figure out what’s wrong with the thermometer. 

“Director Fury. Agent (Y/N). Glad to see you’re up.”

“Agent Coulson. Did you find anything on your mission?”

Coulson closes the door, and secures the room. “This isn’t the first one that happened. The first one we have recorded was one on my team. That was a couple months ago. And it’s partially our fault that all these other accidents have been happening.”

“Spare us the details, Coulson. I expect them in your written report. For now, what can you tell us about this situation?”

He looks at you. “We have been informed of what happened to Agent (Y/N), yes. It is what’s called terrigenesis. The crystals are called terrigen crystals. The short version is that there was an alien race, known as the Kree, on earth a long time ago. They were making weapons, and experimenting on humans to make said weapons. They left us behind with a few of those who could handle their experiment, and they passed it down in their genetic code. When someone touches these crystals, the black husk forms around them, and either kills them, or gives them superpowers.”

His words ring in your head as you lay there, stunned. 

Director Fury speaks first. “What kind of powers are we talking about here?”

“I can’t say for sure. It’s different for everyone. Our girl can cause earthquakes. We’ve met one who could teleport. We met another who could use electricity. There’s another one out there who runs super fast. For Agent (Y/N), it could be anything.”

You finally snap out of your stupor. “Wait a second. You’re telling me, that because I took that stupid fish oil pill, I am now some sort of freak?”

Coulson stops and reassures you. “You are no freak, (Y/N). As they have told us, it is a gift. It allows you to fulfill your role in the universe.”

You look at him incredulously. “And do you believe that shit?”

“Well, fulfilling a role in the universe or not, you’re still not a freak. You are a valuable agent that I expect to see back at work in a week or two, when you’ve been given clearance to leave.” He gives a small smile and leaves as you stare after him.

“He’s right, Agent (Y/N). No matter what, you are still one of us. None of this changes.”

You lay back down, completely on the pillow now. “I – I just think I need some time to process this all, if you don’t mind.”

“Of course.” He leaves, shutting the door behind him, and leaving you with your thoughts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for the kudos! It means a lot to me to know you guys enjoy my work :)


	6. Testing

You spend the next couple of days in the hospital, the doctors not wanting to let you go until they knew you were stable and weren’t going to spontaneously combust. Coulson came by once with letters from someone on his team. Apparently he roped her into writing them to try and make you feel better. They were pretty lame, but knowing there was at least one other person out there that had been in a similar situation as you made you not feel quite as bad. 

When they finally let you leave the hospital, you found a new room waiting for you in the science labs at headquarters. They weren’t going to let you out without doing some tests of their own.

“Is this really necessary?” You ask as someone is taking some of your blood for their studies. 

“If we want to understand what happened and how to properly help you and others, then yes, it is completely necessary.”

You roll your eyes, annoyed that you can’t just go home and watch some movies. You had a collection of World War II documentaries from your parents that even Coulson was jealous of, with all the Captain America nonsense in it. It was pretty boring, but you watched it a lot because your father liked to, and it reminded you of him.

Once they finish taking your blood, you hang a punching bag up and wrap your hands, ready to let off some steam. Your hands fly at the bag, punching away like it's the person you hate the most.

You're at the punching bag for a few hours, until your hands can’t handle any more. You sit down, exhausted, and start to un wrap your hands, when there's a knock at the door. 

“Come in,” you call to whoever is out there.

The door opens slowly, and in comes Brooke. You smile.

“Brooke, it’s good to see you. It’s been too long.”

“You bet it's been too long! You’ve been gone for nearly three weeks, (Y/N)! And they wouldn’t let anyone visit you in the hospital.”

“Well, I’m fine now, I guess.” An idea sparks in your mind. “Say, Brooke, you’re one of the best people with technology. And one of the few I trust.” You take a small box off the table next to you, and hand it to her. “Do you mind checking if this thermometer is working right?”

She takes the thermometer and sits down with it, starting to pull it apart. “Sure. Can I ask what's wrong with it?”

“I think somethings wrong with its temperature reading. If you think it looks fine, then I guess I’ll just have to believe it.”

She fiddles around with it for a few minutes and you sit there in silence, enjoying her company. 

You can tell when she starts to put it back together. “Nothing looks wrong with it to me. Why, what is it saying?”

“You wouldn’t believe me.” 

“Aww, come on (Y/N), it can’t be that much. What are you at, like, 100? And you think it’s wrong?”

You hold your hand out to her, and she puts the thermometer in it. You clean it off and place the end of it in your mouth, waiting for it to start to beep. When it finally does, you hand it back to her. She stares at it in shock. 

“This – can’t be! How can it be so high?”

There’s another knock at the door. “Come on in.”

“Agent (Y/N), glad to see you’re back.”

“Agent Hill. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“They asked me to do a mental test on you, to make sure you’re okay before they send you out of here.”

Brooke stands. “I should go then.” She places the thermometer on the table and looks towards you. “I’m gonna do some research. Stop by the shop sometime soon for me, okay?”

You nod, and she leaves the room.

“Okay, if I report that you are mentally stable, you will be free to go, with watch when you’re not at your apartment.”

You feel like you should be excited about being able to go free, but the fact that she said ‘with watch’ makes you weary. “Why the watch?”

“We don’t know what your powers are hiding, and we don’t know when they might come out. We want to make sure everything is okay when they do come out.”

You sigh. “I guess there's no point in trying to argue. Lets just get on with it then.”

She asks you a couple of questions, and for all of them you give honest answers. By the end of it, you start to yawn.

“Get some rest now, Agent (Y/N). Someone will come in the morning and tell you what’s going to happen.”

“Thanks. I’ll see you again soon.”

She leaves as you head to the bed, and you fall asleep almost as soon as your head hits the pillow.


	7. Almost Normal

“You’re free to go, as soon as you are ready. There’s a security detail waiting for you at the end of the hall, and you have the day off today.”

It’s early in the morning and you didn’t sleep very well, so you are excited to hear that you can go home today and rest. You didn’t care for the security detail, and you felt bad for whoever was on it. They have to deal with you now.

“Okay, okay, just let me out of here. I want to go home and eat some real food, not the shit they make in the hospitals.”

The scientist nods his head, and hands you a card. “If anything happens, call this number. It will come to someone here, and we can send more people out to you.”

You roll your eyes. “Okay, I get it. You guys are scared I’m gonna do something. Trust me, I don’t plan on doing anything other than lounging around the house.”

“Just be careful, okay?”

You push past him and out into the hallway, where there is indeed a security detail waiting for you. You pass them and get a few steps ahead of them when they start to follow. You walk quickly, and you can almost taste the freedom. When you make it outside, you stop and breathe in the fresh air.

When the moment passes, you head to your car. The guys following you enter a car next to yours. Ignoring them, you make your way back to your little apartment. It was the best you could afford. You park out front and head upstairs, being greeted to a stack of papers that was your mail. You pick it all up and enter the apartment, and immediately go to the window. You knew how to keep an eye out for someone, so it wasn’t hard to spot the one agent still in the car, and the other milling around on the street outside the building. 

You sigh, and set to open all the mail you have missed. There wasn’t anything particularly interesting in it. It was mostly bills, coupons, and assorted junk mail. You toss it to the side, and sit down on your couch.

You stay there for a few minutes, taking in the fact that you are finally back home. But then your hunger forces you to move. You pick up your phone and dial a number.

You order a medium pizza and some fries for delivery, and turn the tv on. You decide to put on the news, so you can catch up on anything you have missed.

“We’ve got a surprise for all of you today, folks. It’s none other than billionaire Tony Stark!”

You almost change the channel before you see what’s behind the interview. It’s one of the pictures you had seen accompanying some of the articles you had been getting rid of. You wonder how one escaped from you.

“So, tell us, Tony, are you really the Iron Man?”

You tune out the interview as you realize what's happening. Tony Stark was that unidentified man from a few weeks ago, and he went public about it. You change the channel, not wanting to listen to any more pretentiousness. 

You’re almost asleep when the doorbell rings. You reach for your wallet and open the door.

“Hi! Here’s your pizza.” The apartment buildings security guard, Harris, is at your door. 

“Uhh, thanks.” You take it from him and ask, “how much?”

“Oh, I paid for it. I got you covered. I just wanted to make sure everything was okay, you haven't been here in a while and I was worried.”

You sigh and rub your forehead. He had been trying to ask you out for a while, and no matter how many times you said no he still tried.

“Yes, I was – Out of town. Business trip. See you later!” You shut the door in his face and lock it.

“You can’t resist me for forever! I’ll win you over one of these days!” He calls through the door. 

Ignoring him, you settle down on the couch, ready for some time alone with your food and the tv.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter is going to be a bit longer than normal, so bear with me as I write it.   
> Thank you all for reading, it means a lot!


	8. Gas Station Skirmish

It’s the weekend now, and you always had off unless you were called in. You were lounging around in your pajamas, reading a book. You had a lot of them to catch up on, and figured this extra time off you had could be used to try and read through them. The wind blew in through your open window, and you were enjoying the warmth of the sun.

It was a nice day out, and you’ve been craving some gas station food since you got out of the hospital. You decide to get dressed and walk over for some lunch. 

The person in the security detail that had been on the street was now following you, while the one in the car stayed there. You had a feeling he would be following as soon as you got far enough away that he could follow in the car. 

The streets of the city were busy, full of tourists. You couldn’t remember a time where tourists were never all over though. As the countries capital, everyone thought it was the place to go. 

Reaching the gas station, you enter the crowded building and push your way through the crowds, trying to get to a screen so you can order some food. It takes a few minutes before one opens up for you, and you dash at it so no one else takes it.

You order a sandwich and some soup, and attempt to make your way to the refrigerators to get something to drink. After managing to make it over there and picking a drink out, you stand in the long lines at the cash registers, waiting to pay, and hoping your food isn’t called before you can pay. 

You grab a pack of M&M’s off of the shelf next to you and set everything down on the counter for the cashier to scan it. Pulling your wallet out, you pull out a $20 dollar bill, not wanting any trace to be made with your card. You gather the change and head back in to wait for your food. 

You realize that mostly everyone else in the store was waiting for food too, so you wonder how long you’ll have to wait before they get to your food. The minutes tick by, and it seems as if they put the world's slowest workers onto the rush hour shift, because only a few orders had been finished.

Something felt off to you as you waited. You couldn’t tell what it was, and tried to just brush it off. But it wouldn’t go away. So you looked casually around the crowd, and were drawn to one particular character. He had a scar on his cheek and an outright murderous look. 

You slip through the crowd, not letting this guy out of your sights. He seems pretty normal though, almost normal enough that you nearly give up and go back. But then another person approaches him, and another. They all have the same look in their eyes.

You drop your bag and kneel down to pick it up, turning the safety off of the gun hiding under the back of your shirt in the process. You never went anywhere without a gun or a knife, for safety. They each get in a different line at the registers, with only one thing in their hand, and the other hand in a pocket. 

“GIVE ME ALL YOUR MONEY!” A shot rings out – apparently there was a fourth guy you hadn’t seen. The other three pull guns out and you do the same, pointing yours at the person who had shot the ceiling. The store is in chaos, with everyone screaming and trying to run out. You see your security detail trying to no avail to get in through the crowd.

“Put your gun down, sir, and we can do this the easy way.”

He looks straight at you and smiles, pointing his at you. “It’s four against one, pal. Drop your weapon, or maybe some of these people don’t quite make it out of here.”

You scan the room, and see there are still a ton of people running around, making for easy targets. You grit your teeth and lower your gun, setting it on the counter in front of you. 

“There you go.” He gestures to one of the men and they come over to you, restraining you.

“Let’s grab the cash and get out of here, boys, before anyone else tries to take us.”

You feel anger bubbling up in your stomach. It was one thing for you to give up your weapon because of the threat against the innocents, but for them to think you are nothing – 

“OWWW!” The man who was holding you screams in pain, letting go of your hands to clutch his own, burn marks clearly visible. You look down at your own hands and see they are glowing. Some of your skin starts to crack, letting fire escape from it. You feel your anger exploding out of you, the cracks forming up your arms, the fire lighting the area around you.

You turn your burning eyes towards the other men, and see in a mirror near them that your eyes are quite literally burning. Your hair is fire as well – it’s not on fire, it has completely transformed into a campfire. You ignore this though as you run towards the other guys, aiming for their guns. The fire of your hands cuts right through them as you punch the gun, making the robbers weaponless. 

“What the fuck are you?! A demon?!”

You kick the one talking in the stomach, sending him flying backwards into some shelves, and some flames go with him, setting the shelves on fire. One of the two left behind you punches you, but runs away howling in pain after burning his hand. You punch his face, throwing him onto the counter and causing a burned fist mark to appear on his jaw. 

Turning to the last guy, he holds his hands up in surrender.

“Please, demon, have mercy on me!”

He gets down on his knees and puts his hands on his head. The first guy who burned his hands on you does the same. The other two seem to be unconscious. Your security detail finally makes it into the now empty store, grabbing the two on the floor.

You feel your anger subsiding, and watch as the cracks close on your skin, reducing themselves to thin white lines, and then disappearing completely. You look back up at the mirror, and see you look completely normal again. 

Then you noticed the fire you started in the store. You run over to the guy you had knocked into the shelving and pick him up, carrying him out of the burning building, and then go back in for the other one, the flickering fire not bothering you as you jump over the counter and pick him up, adding him to the rest of the group.

You pull out your phone and call the number the scientist had given you.

“Can you track my phone if I leave the call connected? We have a problem and I don’t have the time to detail where we are.”

“Yes. We will send people over shortly.”

You turn to the security detail, who were finishing putting the guys in cuffs. 

“Well, I lost my gun in there, so I guess it’s back to headquarters for a new one?”

“We’re going to need to do a whole lot more than get you a new gun, buddy.”

You smile sheepishly at them, and you look down. Your clothes are full of holes, burned where you assume were more of those cracks. You look back up at them.

“One of you wouldn’t happen to have some spare clothes, would you? I kind of made a mess of mine.”

The one grunts and walks over to the car that's parked nearby. He pulls a jacket and some pants out of the trunk and brings them back to you.

“You’re a lifesaver, thanks.” You throw the jacket on and zip it up, and pull the pants on over top of the tattered ones. You and the two agents start to herd the crowd away from the burning building, and the other agents show up. Coulson is one of them.

“Agent (Y/N). What happened here?”

You let the other agents take over the herding and walk over to him. “There was a small accident. Are there firetrucks on the way?” As soon as you say that, you can hear the sirens. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

He points to the four guys in handcuffs. “Who are they?”

“They’re the people that started this.”

He looks at them. “So they started the fire?”

One of the ones that was still conscious spoke up. “We didn’t start it, we just wanted the money. It was supposed to be a grab and go.”

“Then who started it?”

“That damned demon did. Keep them away from me, will ya? I’m already in enough pain as it is with my burnt hands.”

He turns to you. “What does he mean about a demon?”

You can’t look Coulson in the eye, so you look at the firetrucks starting to extinguish the roaring flames. “The fire may have been my fault?”

“What?”

The two agents set as your security detail come over. “Agent Coulson, sir, we’re gonna have to take Agent (Y/N) back to headquarters, before they decide to burn down the whole block.”

“You think I did this on purpose?! Put the public in danger, on purpose?!” You yell, anger filling your voice.

“Agent (Y/N),” Coulson says sternly. “Calm down.”

You look down to try and slow your breathing, and you see that your hand was cracked again, fire engulfing it. You watch as your breathing slows and the cracks on your hand close, extinguishing the flames. You walk over to the car, open the backseat and buckle yourself in, knowing you can’t get out of going back to headquarters now.


	9. Back at it Again

You wake up the next day in the room they had fitted for you last time. You sigh and run a hand through your hair, as they forgot to give you a brush. When you arrived at headquarters yesterday, they left you in the room and you haven’t seen anyone since, except for the person who came to give you a tray of food for dinner last night. 

You get up and walk over to the exercise machines they brought in for you so you would have something to do. You hop onto the treadmill and set it for a light jog, so you could last for a long time on it. Some time later, a voice rings out through a hidden speaker.

“Agent (Y/N), report to the science labs.”

You turn the treadmill off and grab a towel as you leave the room, wiping off your sweat as you walk through the building. 

Reaching the science labs, you see everyone full of energy. People seem to be going crazy over something. One of them approaches you.

“Are you Agent (Y/N)?”

“Yes. Is everything okay in here?”

“This?” She turns and looks around. “This is pretty much normal around here. Nothing new really going on.”

“Wow. Okay. I didn’t know you guys normally had this much energy.”

“If you would follow me.”

She leads you past a couple of doors, and into a small lab room. 

“I have to say, we were stumped on your particular – condition until your powers activated yesterday. Once it did, everything we’ve observed made so much more sense.”

You look around, confused. “What did you need me here for?”

She picks up a clipboard and a pen. “We’d like to run a few tests, if you don’t mind. Find out what causes you to activate your powers so maybe we can help you keep them under control. This is one of the rooms in the lab that has a camera always recording, so we can look back on anything we need to later in time.”

You shrug. “I mean, I don’t think I really have a choice in this matter. And it’s not like I have any plans for the day.”

She gets straight to the point. “(Y/N), can you tell me how the fight yesterday went from your perspective?”

You think about it before answering. “I saw some sketchy looking guys and kept an eye on them, then they tried to rob the place. Since it was four against one and they were threatening the bystanders, I had to let go of my weapon and let them take me. So the one guy held my hands behind my back. Then he started to scream, because his hands burned. And then I fought the others, and accidentally set the place on fire.”

“And what were you feeling before you burned his hands?”

“I was feeling – angry. Angry that I let them take me captive so easily, and that they were threatening everyone in the store…” You trail off.

She purses her lips and nods her head. “Anger issues seem to be a common theme.”

“What does that mean?”

She doesn’t answer. “Well, (Y/N) it seems to me that to help you control your powers, you need to be able to control your anger. I’m sure you can activate it in other ways too, but you don’t want to burn everything every time you get angry, do you?”

You shake your head. “Avoiding burning down buildings is what I’d like to do.”

“Go back and get some rest then, we will be sure to find something for you on breathing exercises, that seems like a good place to start. If you want to try and practice, the door behind your bed leads to an empty room with a camera. So there’s less of a chance that you will set something on fire, and if you do someone can come and immediately put it out.”

You stand and head for the door. “Thanks.”

You start the walk back to your room, ready for some time alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for almost 20 Kudos and over 400 hits in the first week! It means a lot! <3


	10. Feel the Burn

It’s been a week since you set the gas station convenience store on fire, and you have been stuck inside the whole time. No one wants you leaving until you can control your powers, so that you don’t set anything else on fire. As much as you don’t want to set anything else on fire, it would still be nice to get outside, maybe take a walk around the block…

Your thoughts are interrupted by the smell of smoke hitting you. You let out a breath you didn’t realize you had been holding and calm yourself down, the edges of your clothes singed and smoking. It’s been easier and easier for you to activate your powers, which means it’s been getting harder and harder for you to stay under control. You find that taking deep breaths seems to be the most effective way to calm down, but it can sometimes take too long, so you still catch on fire.

The last time that happened, you opened your eyes after calming yourself down, and you found yourself on fire, floating a few inches above the ground. It had startled you so much that your powers disappeared and you fell back down, leaving you with a sore bottom for a few hours.

Now that you were calmed down, you enter the room behind your bed. You make sure to close the door behind you, and then sit down in the middle of the room. You find it a lot easier to control the flames when you are calm, so you decide to give it a try. You slowly let them activate, trying to restrict it to your hands. For once, it actually works, the cracks going down no further than your wrists.

You keep your breathing steady and focus, holding your hands up in front of you. Slowly, a small, flickering flame appears in between your hands. It takes you a few minutes to be able to hold it there without it sputtering out. You watch it flicker, restricted to an invisible boundary. You try to will the boundary to grow bigger, and see the fire ever so slowly getting bigger. It grows and grows until about the size of a tennis ball, when you start to feel weary. You stop growing it, and release the energy so you don’t tire yourself out too much. Except when you release it, instead of it disappearing, it flies into the wall, causing a small explosion. You bring your hand up over your face as your powers fade and debris comes flying. 

When you feel the debris stop, you move your arm down and look at the wall. There’s a hole in it that is definitely bigger than a tennis ball, and it’s on fire. You sigh as you hear people out in the hallway running away, and a few seconds later running back. A fire extinguisher starts to go off on the other side of the wall, quenching the fire on both sides. A face appears in the hole once its out, and you wave.

“Sorry about that. It was an accident. I’ll be more careful.”

The person shakes their head and walks away. You walk back into your room and sit down, picking up a charred book. You had gotten angry while reading it last time, and you were lucky enough that you didn’t burn the book completely. It was just something small and boring, but at least it was something to read.

“Agent (Y/N), report to the Director’s office.” The voice rings out from the speaker in the ceiling.

You toss the book aside and walk out, ready to be yelled at for putting a hole in the wall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for your support! Finals are coming up soon, so I won't be able to post much, but I will try to get some more chapters out as soon as I can!


	11. The Avengers What?

As you walk to Director Fury’s office, you make sure to focus on your breathing, because the last thing you need right now is to catch on fire. You’re pretty sure you’re about to get in trouble for making a hole in the wall, so not being on fire when you get into his office sounds like the best way to get in the least amount of trouble possible.

Walking down the halls, you see everyone staring at you, watching your every move. You walk faster, trying to get away from all the prying eyes.

You arrive at Director Fury’s office and the door is closed, so you knock. It is silent for a few seconds before there is an answer. 

“Come in.”

You open the door and close it behind you, then approach Fury’s desk. He is resting his chin on his hands, and you stand in front of him. He gestures for you to sit, so you do.

“Do you know why you’re here, Agent (Y/N)?”

“Is it because of the wall?”

He shakes his head. “While I will advise you to be more careful and to not make holes in the walls anymore, that is not why I called you here. I wanted to see if you would be interested in becoming a part of a team we’re putting together.”

You stare at him questioningly. “Uhh, don’t you remember that I’m stuck here in the building because I set everything on fire?”

“Yes. But first and foremost, you are an Agent. And a damn good one, I might add. I want to talk to you about the Avengers Initiative.”

Confusion spreads across your face. “The what?”

“The World Security Council and I had an idea. The idea is to bring together a group of remarkable people, see if they could become something more.”

You shift in your seat, folding your arms. “What does ‘something more’ mean?”

Fury tilts his head slightly to look you in the eyes with his one eye. “It’s to see if the members can work together when we needed them, to fight battles we never could.”

You roll your eyes. “Yeah, because there’s definitely going to be something that S.H.I.E.L.D. can’t take care of.”

He stays silent and continues to stare at you, until it makes you feel nervous. Then you realize.

“Oh. People like me, huh?”

He nods his head. “It took forever for those firefighters to put out the fire you started. Burned the place halfway to the ground. But people like you aren’t the only threat. There’s a whole galaxy out there, full of who knows what. We need to be ready for any other threat that could come from outside of this world.”

You shake your head. “I don’t know why you would trust me with something like this, I can barely control myself.”

“But you are getting better. And with more practice, you will be able to control it.”

You keep quiet, and he sighs. “Just think about it, okay? You are dismissed.”

You leave his office and take the shortest route possible back to your room, so you can be alone to think about what Fury told you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finals are over, and now it's on to summer break! I'll try to update at least every other week, if not once a week. Thank you all so much for the Kudos and comments, they all mean so much to me<3


	12. Mission Prep

A few days after your meeting with Fury, he comes to you this time.

You opened the door to your room when you heard knocking, and now you are sitting with him in the only two chairs in your room.

“So, to what do I owe this visit?” You ask, knowing there was no way he would have come if there wasn’t something important.

“I’ve been watching your training, and I think you are getting better. You could definitely still use some work, but at least you’ve stopped making holes in the walls.”

You look at him, unamused. “Thanks.”

He continues. “I need you ready to go in two hours. We’re flying out to California. Go check in with Brooke, I believe she has something for you.” He gets up and heads for the door.

“Wait, why are we leaving?” You call after him, but he leaves without answering.

Deciding it was bad to not follow his orders, you make your way to the weapons lab and locate Brooke.

“Hey, Brooke,” You say as you walk over to her.

“(Y/N)! I am so glad to see you! I heard you’re leaving on a mission soon, so I wanted to give you something before you go.” She turns to a desk next to her and grabs a vest and pants off of it.

“Uhh, thanks? I guess? Why do I need it?”

She laughs. “Well, I figured you didn’t want to keep setting all of your clothes on fire, did you? Because that sounds expensive. So, I made you this one! It is completely flameproof, on the inside and out. I think it looks good as a uniform for when you are on duty, but the material is thin enough that you can easily wear it under your normal clothes, so that way you will always have something on that won’t burn.”

You take it off of her and hold it up against your chest. “It looks like it will fit. Thanks! Why no sleeves though?”

She shrugs. “I’ve been watching some videos of when you use your powers. Thought it would look cooler with your head and arms on fire, instead of just your head and your hands, because that sounds ridiculous.”

“I mean – yeah, I guess that would look kind of weird.”

“Well, you should get out of here, because of the mission, but come back soon! I’m almost done that watch.”

You salute her as you walk out the door with the uniform in your hands. “Will do, my friend.”

When an hour and a half has passed from when Fury told you to be ready, you have changed into the outfit Brooke made and packed a small bag of extra items you may or may not need. You still don’t know what you are doing, so you really didn’t know what kinds of things to bring.

You sling the bag over one shoulder and roam the halls, trying to get used to the suit. It fits surprisingly well, and you actually think not having sleeves makes you look more like a badass in it. Hopefully you will remember to properly thank Brooke next time you see her.

“Agent (Y/N).”

You turn around at the sound of your name, and see Agent Coulson standing there. You smile.

“Coulson! Haven’t seen you in a while.”

“We’re about to launch. Are you ready?”

You nod. “As ready as I can be without knowing what we are doing.”

“Follow me, we’ll get details on the way.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anyone was looking for a visual on the Reader, I drew my interpretation of when the Reader uses their powers, and this new suit, which can be viewed[ here! ](https://twitter.com/Pearll09/status/986411831215509504)
> 
> Thank you for all the kudos! Your support really means a lot!


	13. Stark's A Mess

You and Agent Coulson walk to the quinjet together, and find on board a few other agents, a box, and Fury.

“Director Fury,” You say as you walk past him, acknowledging him.

After the quinjet is up in the air for a few minutes is when you get an update on your mission.

“I’m sure all of you know who Tony Stark is. We currently have an agent keeping an eye on him, but his condition is getting bad. We need to get him this box, and set up a security perimeter around his house. Agent Coulson, you are in charge here. You set up the perimeter, you tell everyone where to go. Agent (Y/N), you will be Starks personal security. You need to keep an eye on him at all times.”

“Yes sir.”

The rest of the quinjet ride is mostly quiet, save for a few of the other agents whispering to each other. When you land, Fury heads off on his own, while Coulson leads all of you off to set up at Stark's house, bringing the box with you. A few minutes after the perimeter is set, Fury arrives with Stark. 

You stand up against a wall as Fury brings the box out for Stark, and talks with him about something. You aren’t paying enough attention to know what it is.

“Agent (Y/N) here will be in charge of you, making sure you stay in line and you fix yourself before it gets bad like that again.” Fury gestures to you, and you walk over into Stark’s line of view.

He stands up from his seat and walks over to you, with his shoulders squared and his chin up. He is a few inches shorter than you, so maybe the chin up is just so he can look you in the eyes.

“(Y/N), huh? What do you do?”

You raise an eyebrow and smirk. “Mostly surveillance. Spy stuff. But don’t worry, we already have all the information we need about you, so you won’t be giving anything away to me.”

He frowns and huffs, and then turns to Fury. “I want a new one. This one's annoying.”

“They’re the only one you’re going to get, Stark. Trust me, they are more than qualified for the job. We’ll leave you be. Make sure to take a look at this.” He points to the box.

Everyone clears out of the mansion except for Stark and you. He picks the box up and walks over to a staircase. “If I’m stuck with you, you might as well come down here.”

You follow him into his workshop downstairs, and find a good place to stand against one of the walls. Stark does a good job of pretending like you aren’t there as he goes through the contents of the box. He takes all night to go through it, and decides in the morning that he needs to go somewhere.

“Alright useless, what’s the deal? Am I allowed to leave or what?”

“You are not allowed to be out of my sights.”

He smirks. “So lets say I throw you in the car with me and you tag along, I can get out of here for a few hours?”

You match his smirk, which makes him seem slightly unnerved. “I would not be tagging along, if you leave I am coming with you. But if you leave the premise, then Agent Coulson will be alerted, so, I will let you make the decision.”

He grumbles and turns away. “You’re a jerk.”

“I’ve heard worse.”

“Get in the car.”

He takes the two of you to the Stark Industries office building, but won’t say what he needs.

“Look, it’ll be really weird if you come in with me, is there any way that you can just, I don’t know, chill out here in the car while I go run inside real quick?”

“No. I can’t let you out of my sights.”

He huffs and runs his hand through his hair, trying to think of something. When he does, he scrambles to type something on his phone, and then hands it to you with a smile on his face.

“Here. Watch the security cameras. Then you aren’t letting me out of your sights.”

You take the phone and scowl as you sit back down in the car, because he was right. You could technically still keep an eye on him while watching the security feed.

When he finally comes back out, he's carrying a big model for something, and you make no effort to help him put it in the car.

When he sits back down at the wheel, he's really mad. “Jackass, why couldn't you help?”

You shrug. “My mission is to keep an eye on you, not help you. Besides, you didn't ask.”

That makes him shut up and scowl all the way back to his house, where you take up your position against the wall as he starts to work on building something. You stand and watch, and he keeps glancing over at you for some reason.

“How are you not sweating?”

“Huh?” His question caught you off guard.

“I said, how are you not sweating? It’s ridiculously hot in here. I mean, I know you’re busy being a wall decoration, so there’s no physical activity going on for you, but the heat should still be bothering you at least a little.”

You purse your lips. “A little bit of heat doesn’t bother me, Mr. Stark.”

He repeats your words in a high pitched voice, making fun of you. “Well, at least make yourself useful. Come hold this up for me, will you?”

Coulson walks in as you help Stark. “Agent (Y/N). Mr. Stark. I heard you left the mansion.”

Stark glares at you, and you shrug. You did warn him, after all.

“Why does that matter, you gonna do something about it?”

“Actually, no. Something else came up. I have been reassigned. So has Agent (Y/N). We need to go.”

You set the metal you were holding down and hold out your hand, forcing a smile. “I guess this goodbye, Mr. Stark. It's been a pleasure.”

He doesn't take your hand. “Yeah, no it hasn't. You literally stood there and did nothing 95% of the time. Just get out of here.”

You nod and pull your hand back, and follow Coulson out of the mansion.


	14. New Mexico

“So, do you want to tell me what’s going on?” You ask Coulson from the backseat of a car.

“Reports of a satellite crash. S.H.I.E.L.D. was put in charge of it. Unfortunately, the reports coming in are saying it won’t move. It tore a truck in half when a cable was tied to it.”

“So we have to set up around it instead of taking it to a secure place?”

“Yes.”

The driver stops the car on a ridge of a sand dune, and Coulson steps out of the car. He looks down at the people gathered in the crater below. He looks back at you and motions for you to get out of the car, along with a few of the other cars full of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents.

He points down into the crater. “We need to clear the area. Send all of these guys home, start a perimeter. Agent Barton, you’re in charge until I get back. I’m going to take a small team into the town a few miles out, see if there’s anyone there that may know something.”

“Yes sir,” says a brown haired man, who you assume is Agent Barton.

You are put into the team staying with the satellite, and are put in charge of setting up the perimeter fence. Someone speaks from behind you.

“It’s strange that it’s a hammer that fell from the sky, isn’t it?”

You turn around and see Agent Barton. “Oh, uh, yeah. Pretty strange.”

He extends his hand. “I like your style. Nice to see someone else likes going sleeveless. Clint Barton.”

You take his hand and shake it. “(Y/N). I have to say, it’s not something I usually wear, but it’s growing on me.” You finish the last of the fence and turn around, ready for your next assignment.

“Help me keep watch, would you?” Barton asks. 

You nod, and look over to where everyone else is setting up a tent like structure around the hammer stuck in the ground.

“So (Y/N), what do you usually do for S.H.I.E.L.D.?”

“Nothing like this. Usually just spy work, nothing big. But some – recent events – seem to have changed that.”

There’s a hint of recognition in his eyes. “Are you the one that made the hole in the wall back in DC?” Your shocked expression gives it away. “Oh yeah, I was there. Didn’t know it was you. So you’re the … fire person?”

You nod. “I guess word travels fast.”

He shrugs. “Only when you go pushing people's buttons after watching a wall explode to get some information out of them. Truth is, this isn’t my usual line of work, either. I feel more comfortable at the end of a weapon than standing around here acting as guard for a bunch of scientists.”

“What do you usually use? An M16? M24?”

“A bow and arrows.”

That response catches you off guard, and you laugh. “Seriously?”

He keeps his face completely serious. “Yep. Brought it with me, actually. I’ll have to show you some time.”

“Yeah. Sounds pretty impressive if you’ve lasted this long with just a bow and arrow.”

The two of you keep watch for a while, until Coulson comes back. 

“Barton, (Y/N), you’re in charge of security. Set up a guard, positions, whatever. Since we can’t move the satellite, we need to make sure people stay as far away as we can make them.”

Barton grins as Coulson walks away. He then turns to you. “Maybe if someone gets a little too close, you can show me some of that fire of yours.”

You shake your head. “Not a chance. I’m not going to turn someone into accidental barbeque. Maybe you can use your bow, go all Robin Hood on them.”

He laughs. “Maybe I will.”


	15. Asgardian Terror

You and Clint spend your time taking shifts with the other agents there as guard, and you enjoy talking to him. He doesn’t seem to be phased by the fact that you have powers, and knows not to push you too far unless he wants the possibility of being burned.

“Hey, (Y/N).”

“Clint. What’s up?” He climbs up to your usual watching spot.

“Why are you up here? It’s nighttime. I bet even I wouldn’t be able to see very far. Unless you also happen to have night vision?”

You laugh. “No, I just wanted to be alone for a while. I get the feeling that not everyone is keen on the idea of having someone like me around.”

There’s noise in your earpiece. Something about a fence being broken.

“Well, if you ever want time away from those people and not be alone, feel free to find me next time. I trust you won’t blow up on me,” He says in a joking tone.

“Thanks.” Alarms start to go off, and we scramble back down to the ground.

Coulson’s voice comes into your earpiece. “I need someone up high. With a gun.”

Barton grabs his bow and climbs into a crane so he can get up high. It starts to rain, and you make your way through the maze of tents, trying to find where the person who snuck in is. You round a corner and someone goes flying through the plastic in front of you. 

When you look at where the person came from, you see a tall, muscular man, with long blond hair. The two of you look at each other for a second, and you plant yourself firmly in his path to try and block him. He charges you, and your curl your hands into fists. 

At the last second, your hand connects with his jaw, sending him reeling backwards. He grins, and throws a punch at your head, which you duck, using your momentum to roll away and put some distance between him and you. In one step, he closes that distance, and throws another punch. You dodge it, but it was a fake punch, and his other hand lands in your gut. You double over, and can feel fire flickering in your eyes, but he hits you on the side of your head before you can recover, knocking you to the ground and making you see double. 

You can’t get yourself up until your vision returns to normal, and by that time, the man has been caught already. You see Clint coming over to you as you sit up.

“Oh my God, (Y/N), your face.”

“What’s wrong with my face?” You bring your hand up and touch it, wincing.

“You’ve got a nice, big black eye. I guess you ran into our friend that was sneaking around?” He holds his hand out to help you up.

You nod and take his hand, and groan in pain from the spot on your gut he had hit as Clint pulls you up.

“No fire today?”

“No, I didn’t want – I don’t like to use it on people. I don’t trust I have it under control enough. So it’ll only come out if I can’t keep it under control. Most likely.”

“Shame. Would have liked to see that giant of a man try and go up against that. Here, lets get you over to medical. Get an ice pack, make sure your ribs are okay.”

You spend the rest of the night in the medical room, after they wrapped your abdomen up and told you you have a minor concussion. When you wake up in the morning, they give you an ice pack for your eye, and tell you to stay put. 

You forgot you were still wearing your earpiece until Coulson’s voice rings in it again. “(Y/N)? Are you available? If so come to the gate now, we’ve got something.”

You are not cleared to leave yet, but you sneak out anyways. 

“Coulson, Sir, what’s wrong?”

“Get in a car, (Y/N). There was some kind of funnel cloud formed about fifteen miles away.”

That’s all he needs to say before you get in the car. When you reach the site, there is a big circle on the ground, in some sort of pattern. Coulson walks over to it and kneels.

“Send for someone from linguistics,” he says to a nearby agent.

You look up into the sky and see clouds forming suddenly, and the wind picks up. “Coulson?”

He follows your gaze to the funnel coming out of the cloud. “What is it?”

The funnel touches down on the ground, and disappears almost as suddenly as it appears, leaving behind some kind of metallic robot.

“Is that one of Stark’s?” Someone asks.

“I don’t know. Guy never tells me anything.”

“Coulson, I wouldn’t approach it, it looks dangerous.”

He ignores you and tries to tell it that it is an unauthorized weapon. The things head opens up, and some kind of light starts to form in it, growing brighter.

You run to Coulson and push him out of the way while screaming, “Watch out!”

Suddenly all you can see is a bright, orange white color, and you hear an explosion. When the light fades, you see that a nearby car was destroyed by the beam, after it passed right through you. 

You look down at yourself, surprised to see that you were unscathed. You turn back to look at the robot, but before you can do anything it backhands you, sending you flying into one of the cars. It then shoots another beam out of its face, and the car you are on explodes, sending you flying again. 

You lay in the dirt for a while, the impact of both the car and the ground having hurt you more than anything has before. But, since everything had been some sort of fire, there were no burns on your body. An agent comes over to help you up.

“Coulson had to go, we sent him in a car to town after that thing. He said we need to get you back to medical.” You recognize the voice.

“I’m fine. I just want to lay here in the dirt for a little longer.”

Clint sighs. “(Y/N), you were slammed into a car and then the car exploded and that flung you to the ground. You need to get to medical. You might be burn free, but I’m willing to believe you have some bone fractures. Now stop pretending to be all tough and get up.”

You slowly push yourself off of the ground, and Clint helps you up. He takes most of your weight because your leg is messed up, and he helps you into the backseat of a car. You stretch across the seats, and as Clint starts to drive, you fall asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll be in the comment section if you want to yell at me :)


	16. Flare

A few weeks after the New Mexico incident, you are back in your apartment in D.C. Fury gave you eight weeks on leave so you could heal. You had sprained your right ankle, and your right arm was fractured. Everywhere else was covered in dark bluish purple bruises.

You hated the crutches. And the ankle brace. But you especially hated the cast. The day you could finally take it off, you were ecstatic. Now, you have to walk around on your foot, and do some arm exercises, so that the two can regain their proper functions. Doctor’s orders.

It’s a nice day out, so you decide instead of walking laps around your apartment, you’ll walk outside some. Taking Brooke’s advice, you put the fireproof vest and pants on, and then put normal clothes on top of it.

You find your headphones on the kitchen island and plug them into your phone, finding some relaxing music to listen to as you enjoy the weather outside.

You decided the National Mall would be too full of tourists at this time for you to go there, so you stick to the city streets, enjoying being back in a familiar place. And you hadn’t run into Harris since you got back, which was even better.

You sit on an empty bench after a while, trying to make sure you don’t over exert your ankle and hurt it again. The last thing you want is more time sent on leave. You were itching to do something again, not just lounge around in the apartment.

You don’t know whether it was your music playing, or if you had gotten lost in your thoughts, but when you finally heard the alarm you had to curse yourself for letting your guard down. Apparently, you can’t walk around town anymore without running into something bad.

Tearing off your headphones, you run towards the bank, reaching for your gun. Except, you forgot to bring it. You had been so focused on making sure to walk around some this morning that you left it on a table. That leaves you with only one option.

You grit your teeth as you burst through the bank doors, and see the robbers holding customers hostage while trying to steal money from the tellers. You feel your fingers flicker as you rush to the men keeping hostages, and you manage to punch one of them on the side of their head before they notice you, sending him to the floor. The man next to him points a gun at you, but you grab it before he can shoot it, your fire rendering it useless. You can see the terror in his eyes before you knock him out too.

The men at the tellers finally realized something was happening, and turn around to see you, a person on fire yet completely unharmed. Before they can get over the shock of someone being on fire, you form a fireball and do the best you can to shoot it at them. It lands at their feet, which is good enough for you, because it still explodes and destroys their guns. They try to run away, and run right into the police coming into the building.

You quickly extinguish yourself and slip out of a backdoor, so as to not draw attention to yourself. You make your way back to your apartment as fast as you can, and lock yourself in for the night.

You wake up the next morning to a text notification on your phone from an unlisted number.

_Turn on the news. Channel 7._

You walk over to the television and turn it on, sitting on your couch. Your hands eventually find your face as you watch the security footage of the bank between your fingers. You switch to another channel. And then another. All of them are talking about you, about this ‘Flare’.

You sigh. “Shit.” Going back to your phone, you type in a number and wait for someone to answer. “This is (Y/N). Tell Fury I’m coming in. I don’t care that I’m still on leave. I’ll be there in twenty.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for over 1000 hits and over 50 kudos already! Your support means so much to me!


	17. New Tech

“Agent (Y/N).” 

You look up from the conference table to see Coulson entering the room.

“Agent Coulson, Sir.”

“Fury isn’t here today. Something came up in New York. So you’re stuck with me.”

“Yeah. About yesterday…” He holds up a hand, and you stop talking.

“Don’t worry about it.” You look at him, confused. “It was going to happen eventually. The public finding out about you, I mean. We’re handling it so they don’t get too far and try to find your identity.”

“So… I didn’t mess up?”

“Not entirely. It would have been nice to have some warning beforehand. But, since you insisted on coming in, you might as well stay. I'm sure there's something you need to do.”

“Yes Sir.”

He leaves the room to go back to work. You leave as well, deciding to stop and see Brooke. When you reach her lab, she’s talking to a woman with red hair. You walk over to them, making sure Brooke can see you, but not interrupting them. When she does see you, she walks over, leaving the redhead to look at something.

“Hey, I’m glad you’re here! I finished the watch. And I made sure it’s fireproof!” She walks over to a cabinet and pulls out a box, and then hands it to you. You open it, and see what looks like a normal, black metal watch with a digital face. She points to a button. “This one sets the time just in case it gets off. If you cross into other time zones, it should fix itself, but it hasn’t exactly been tested for that.” She points to another button. “This one will shoot off a tracking device. The watch surface will keep an eye on it. Hold it for four seconds and the tracker will come back.”

The redhead walks over to us. “Brooke, how do you activate this again?” She’s fiddling with something on her wrist.

“Oh! Right. Sorry.” Brooke shows her how to use it.

“(Y/N), you want to see this? They were your idea after all.”

“What do you mean?” 

“The taser cuffs!”

“(Y/N), huh?” The redhead asks. “This was your idea?”

“Well, it was more of a suggestion. She’s the one that made it into something real.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be on leave right now?”

You look at her, confused. “How did you know?”

“I heard about it. Natasha Romanov. Clint told me about you.”

You nod. “How much do you know?”

She grins. “Everything.”

“That’s not unsettling at all.”

She shrugs. “You get used to it.”

“Okay then.”

“I heard there was quite a mess at the bank yesterday.”

Brooke cuts into our conversation. “Oh yeah! I forgot to ask you about that! (Y/N), are you okay after everything?”

“Yeah, Brooke. I managed to take them down without a single shot being fired. But now that I’m sort of public, I have a feeling that I won’t be able to use the shock factor of someone on fire fighting them.”

“You better keep an eye out,” Natasha says, “you never know what might start to happen around here now that a superhero in D.C. is public knowledge.”

You nod again. “Thanks. I’ll be extra cautious.” You take the watch out of the box and put it on. “I should get going. If you need me, I’m sure you somehow have my number.”

“Be careful out there, (Y/N)!”

“I will, Brooke. Thanks.” You leave the lab and walk up the stairs to your desk.


	18. Work As Usual

The office is currently empty, so you can sit back at your desk undisturbed. The first thing you do is log into your email. You missed a lot while you were out, so it takes forever to go through your inbox. When you finally get to the most recent one, it’s from Fury.

_Agent (Y/N),_

_I heard you decided to ignore your leave and came to headquarters today. And that Coulson let you stay. So, I’ll count today as a work day for you, and you can finish your leave early and start normal hours again tomorrow._

_Director Fury_

You sigh in relief. You weren’t sure how much more you could handle of sitting around and doing nothing. 

Ivan comes in and sees you at your desk. “Hey, (Y/N), you’re finally back!”

You turn to him with a smile. “Hey, Ivan. Yeah, I’m back. But who knows for how long, giving my current track record.”

He sits down at his desk. “Yeah, but at least you were pretty recently out on a mission. I can’t even tell you the last time I was out on one. I’ve been stuck here, doing little things. Little, not fun things.”

You pull up some of the articles that are coming out about you. “At least your face isn’t plastered all over the news and internet today.”

He nods. “Very true.”

You read through some of the articles. The titles are all ridiculous, like  _ Flare: Friend or Foe?  _ and  _ New Superheroes: Where Are They Coming From? _

You didn’t realize you were getting angry while reading through some of them until Ivan called you out. “(Y/N)? You’re smoking. You’re not going to like, Hulk out, are you?”

You take a deep breath and exhale, to calm yourself. Once you feel that you’ve calmed down enough, you look at him questioningly. “I’m good. What do you mean by Hulk out?”

“Oh, right. You haven’t been here for a while so you wouldn’t know. I forgot. There was an incident up in New York a few weeks ago that was kept under wraps as best as we could. Some doctor’s experiment went wrong a few years ago, and the government’s been chasing him. When he gets angry, he turns into this giant, green beast, known as the Hulk. He's ridiculously strong, and impervious to almost everything.”

“That sounds – scary. And like someone I should try to avoid. Or maybe I should try to find him? We could share techniques for keeping calm.”

“I heard he’s not in the country, trying to hide from everyone, so I don't think you need to worry about that.”

“I mean, if I was him, I’d be trying to hide as well.”

“Agent (Y/N). You’re in today?” Maria Hill says as she walks in.

“Yeah, with all the press coming in about me I thought I was going to have to do something or I was in trouble. Turns out, I was worrying for nothing. So Coulson told me to stay since I was here, and Fury just cleared me to finally come back to work.”

“That’s good. We’ve been busy around here, and could definitely use you now that you’re back. For now though, I think everything has been handled. I’ll come back to you if I need anything.”

“Yes, Ma’am.” You turn back to your desk as she leaves and start back on your work.


	19. Can't Catch A Break

Being back to work was good. You liked having something to do instead of sitting around all day in your apartment, not really doing anything. For the next few weeks, everything almost seemed like it was back to normal. You weren’t stuck in that room they set up for you, you didn’t have a guard anymore when you went home, and you were stuck doing paperwork. Your face was still plastered everywhere, but it seemed like the heat was dying down some, with the articles becoming less and less frequent.

That was, until, one day when you were walking home after work.

You were walking in a normally crime ridden part of the city, so when the explosion happened, you really shouldn’t have been so surprised. But it still took you a few seconds after the explosion to actually start moving.

You run over to the apartment building that is billowing smoke and look up at it. You can smell the gas in the air, which means it might have just been an accident. People inside are screaming. Forcing the front door open, you run into a faceful of smoke. The screams are coming from above you, so you run to the stairs, and run up through the fire to locate the screaming.

You find a mother covering her child, surrounded by a ring of flames. She calls out to you, begging for help. You can get to them no problem, but getting them out of the ring of fire without them being harmed is an issue. 

Your instincts kick in and you put your hand out, towards the fire. Miraculously, the flames come to you, and you pull the fire from the circle surrounding the two. It winds around your arm, and then seemingly disappears. With the fire cleared, the mother picks her child up and runs out the door. You follow, pulling more flames from the path until you can get outside. 

The mother and child are escorted to the ambulance that showed up, and the fire truck is hooking its hoses to the fire hydrant. Someone else is on top of the truck as they ready the ladder. You look up and see someone waving their hands frantically on the roof. You can hear the sound of the building starting to collapse. They won’t get to the man in time with the slow rate the ladder is going.

You run past some firefighters and enter the building again, despite their yelling at you. Luckily, the staircase you pick takes you right up to the roof. You swing the door open and yell to the guy.

“Hey! Over here! Follow me!”

He turns and stares at you. “Are you crazy? There’s fire down there!”

“It’s either this or have the building to collapse on you! Come here now!”

He still doesn’t move, so you run over to him and grab his wrist, pulling him back with you. You pull him down behind you while your other hand is out, pulling any flames in your way to your arm and making them disappear. When you finally get to the bottom of the building and get him out, the roof crumbles in on itself.

The man is escorted over to the ambulance as well, and you bend over with your hands on your knees, trying to catch your breath after all that running. The fire you somehow made disappear kindled your own flames, and you struggle to keep them in check. You can hear the sound of the cameras, and look up to see a crowd being held back by police, snapping pictures and taking videos.

You curse under your breath and run up the alley next to the building, knowing it was too close to the fire for anyone to be in there, and use the connecting alleys to disappear from the crowd.


	20. There's No Trust

When you arrive at work the next day, you don’t even have to check your email before you figure it out. All the pictures and videos people took from the fire made it into all sorts of articles, which were spamming your phone with notifications. Some of them claim that you started the fire, others interviewed witnesses who said you were only saving people.

The loudspeakers ring out. “Agent (Y/N), report to Director Fury’s office.”

You sigh and stand up, gaining stares from everyone else in the office. You quickly walk out and head towards Fury’s office, because you don’t want to keep him waiting.

The door is already open, and you see him gesture for you to come in. His face looks grim. You close the door behind you and sit down in a chair in front of his desk. 

“Agent (Y/N). You had quite the interesting day yesterday, didn’t you.”

“I’m sorry, I should have been more careful. I should have known there would be cameras going out front after the firetruck and ambulance showed up. I could have avoided some of this.”

He sits down with a sigh. “Tell me, what did happen? Because not a lot of these articles are consistent.”

You recount the previous days excitement to him, being sure to mention how you were getting rid of the fire, since that was new. He sits there silent while you speak, as well as for a few seconds after you finish.

“I just finished a call with the world security council,” He says as he stands, and then he starts to pace. “They decided the Avengers Initiative is not something we should continue with. They have canceled it.”

“Why are you telling me this? I never even told you yes or no for it.”

“That was not the only thing they called about. They said that there is too much of a risk right now. With all the – enhanced people starting to come to light, there is a lot of press involved. A lot of the press is coming out as negative, and it’s a lot of work for us. They can’t do anything to Stark, because he is not in their power and is rich. They’re keeping a close eye on Dr. Banner, because the last time they tried to capture him it didn’t go their way. But, there’s still one last person.”

“Me.”

Some people enter the office with some weird looking thing in their hands.

Fury nods. “They don’t trust me. Don’t trust you. They feel that your actions since New Mexico have been too much, and fear that you will get out of control. And no matter what I tried to tell them, they don’t believe when I said there’s no way you would have started the fire. They think there is still the possibility that you did, or will in the future. So they want you to wear these.”

The men walk over to you, and you can see that they are each holding some sort of brace.

“What are they?”

“They are a type of arm braces, specially designed for inhumans. That’s the name that was decided on for everyone who has come out of that black husk like you did. After some intense research, some scientists found a way to – prohibit an inhumans power.”

You understand now what is going on. “And if I refuse?”

“We will have to put them on with force.” He looks you directly in the eyes. “Please don’t make that happen.”

Deciding you don’t want to possibly lose your job, and believing you wouldn’t be able to get past everyone in the building alone, you take your watch off and hold out your hands. The men then approach you and put them on. They are a tight fit, and make you feel a little dizzy. The men then leave the room.

“I’m sorry it came to this, (Y/N). I truly am. But there were no other options. If I had a choice, I wouldn’t have resorted to this.”

You look at him, annoyed. “There’s always a choice. Some are just a lot easier to choose than others. You made your choice, and if you had chosen differently, you wouldn't have to be sorry. Now I make mine.” You purse your lips. “I thank you for all of your concerns.” You then turn and leave, not letting him answer, feeling strange being upset and not having any of your fire appear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't worry, they aren't going to be permanent, I just like being mean  
> The idea for the braces comes from the ones Fitzsimmons made Daisy/Sky when she first got her powers in Agents of SHIELD if you were wondering


	21. The Helicarrier

You find out very soon that you can not take the braces off. If you try, it sends a slight shock up your arm. If you want it off, someone else will have to do it, with either fingerprints or some kind of password. Your watch fits on over top of them, so you keep it on. You stay at work even after everything that’s happened, and push off any of the questions about the braces. You also actively avoid Fury, since he was the one who made you wear them and then tried to say he was sorry for it.

You can’t avoid his emails, though. 

_ Agent (Y/N), _

_ Pack your bags. Be in the hangar by noon. _

_ Director Fury _

You roll your eyes and log off of the computer, and take your car back to your apartment. You throw a bag of clothes and some necessary items together, and make it back and into the hangar on time.

“Agent (Y/N),” Fury calls as you walk in.

“Director,” you respond with a straight face.

“I’m glad you got my email. We’re stationing you on the helicarrier. We need more people on board.”

You nod. “Is that all, Director?”

“(Y/N), I wanted to –” 

You cut him off by turning around and walking away, over to the quinjet ready for you. You’d rather not hear whatever excuse he was about to make up. The door closes, and the pilot takes you to the helicarrier.

“Agent (Y/N), it’s good to see that you’re here.” Maria Hill walks across the runway to you as you get off of the quinjet.

You smile. “Agent Hill. It’s good to see someone who’s not Director Fury.”

“I take it you’re upset with him?”

“Very. What am I expected to do here?”

“Follow me, I’ll show you around.”

You get a tour of all the major sections of the helicarrier. There’s an extensive control area, with so many computers it doesn’t seem like all of them are even needed. There’s a small science lab, a medical bay, a hangar, and some kind of jail cell. There are also a few other rooms, but they aren’t deemed important enough for the quick tour.

“We need you to be ready for anything. Controlling the on board weapons, helping outside with plane landing, sitting and running something with one of those computers on the bridge. We’ll let you know on a day by day basis. There are living quarters on board, so be prepared to spend at least a few weeks on here, if not longer.”

You nod. “Okay. What do you need me to do now?”

“Get yourself situated for today. Do whatever you want. I will make sure we have something set up for you for tomorrow.”

You nod and she walks away, leaving you to yourself. You decide to set up at one of the many computers in the bridge to see if you can figure it out. Your usual work username and password let you into the system, so you don’t have to worry about asking for new ones. It’s a little more high tech than your work computer, but it does everything your desk computer can. 

It takes a few minutes for you to get used to the differences, but it works just fine. Once you feel like you understand how to use it, you log off and grab your bag to go find where you will be staying.


	22. The Briefing

After a few days on the helicarrier, Fury comes aboard. 

“Director Fury,” You say to him as he walks over to you at your station.

“Look, I know you don’t want to talk. But I need you to read through these files.” He hands you a usb drive. “Something happened at one of our facilities, where something of ours was stolen. We’re setting up a team to help search for it.”

“And you want me on the team?”

He turns and starts to walk away. “Just read it.”

You reluctantly plug the usb into your computer. The first file that comes up is about the tesseract. It is some weird glowing cube that S.H.I.E.L.D. used to have before it was stolen by Loki, an Asgardian, who also took with him a few S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, including Agent Barton. They had obtained the tesseract after Hydra fell during World War II, when they had used it to make weapons. 

That file leads into how Hydra was taken down. Captain America, or Steve Rogers, who recently resurfaced after being frozen in ice for almost seventy years, was directly involved with taking down Hydra. Hydra had been the first owner of the tesseract. Captain Rogers volunteered himself for scientific experiments after trying to enlist in the army multiple times and failing. The experiment was a success, giving him super strength. He carries around with him a shield made of vibranium, the strongest and rarest metal on earth. Most of his time is spent throwing the shield at his enemies though and not used as it is supposed to be used. Even so, he managed to fight his way through Hydra, until crash landing the plane full of explosives that he was in to save everyone. Ouch.

The next file is on Dr. Bruce Banner, a scientist who had been trying to recreate the super soldier serum that was used on Steve Rogers. He thought gamma radiation was the key to unlocking it. He was so confident in his theories and calculations that he tested them on himself. It did not work the way he thought it would, and the Hulk was created. It is a giant, green beast with amazing strength and is impervious to practically everything. Even the army couldn’t stop him.

The last file in the drive is on Tony Stark, or Iron Man. After being kidnapped in Afghanistan and forced to recreate a weapon for a terrorist organization known as The Ten Rings, he instead designed a specialized suit of armor to help him escape. When he arrived home, he continued to perfect the suit design, not knowing someone he knew was using the original design to create a suit of his own. The two fought in the middle of a highway which was covered extensively in the news, and when Mr. Stark went to give a statement on it, he told the world he was Iron Man.

As you finish reading the files, you hear footsteps behind you, so you turn around. Fury was back.

“So, what am I supposed to do with all this information?”

“They will all be arriving here on the helicarrier at some point soon. I have assigned Agent Romanov to Dr. Banner. You,” He pauses to make sure you are paying attention. “You will be assigned to Captain Rogers. Your task will be to keep an eye on him, and act as a guide around the helicarrier.”

“Is that all?”

“For now.” He walks away, back to his spot in the center of the bridge. You leave the room to walk around the helicarrier again so you remember where everything is for when Captain Rogers comes aboard.


	23. The Star Spangled Idiot

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, title might be a little harsh for this, but it was the working chapter title and I couldn't bring myself to change it

Your walk around the helicarrier was a lot longer than you had expected. You forgot how many interconnecting hallways there were, and had to make sure you knew the shortest ways to and from all the major sections of the ship. 

On your way back to the bridge, you find a tall, muscular, blond man in a brown leather jacket trying to pull open a door, but it won’t budge. You stop and watch him struggle, until it looks like he will literally pull the door off to get in.

“If you keep pulling like that, you might just pull the door off.”

He jumps slightly, because you managed to sneak up on him and scare him. He turns to you, slightly red.

“I mean, unless that was what you were trying to do, then I think you’ve got it down.”

He rubs the back of his neck as he answers you. “The door must be stuck or something. Since I can’t get it open.”

“Would you like some help?”

He nods and steps out of the way. You walk over to the door and push it open, and then walk through the open door to hold it for him. He is completely red now, and is looking down at the floor. 

“Uhh, thanks. I guess I should have tried that.”

You smile at how embarrassed he is over the door. “It’s okay, happens to the best of us.” You extend your hand. “(Y/N).”

He steps through the door and takes your hand to shake it. “Steve. Actually, I was coming here to look for you.”

“Who sent you?”

“Fury. I just got here.”

Your eyes grow wide as you realize who you have been talking to. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry… I should have realized who you were. I apologize for embarrassing Captain America.”

He waves it off. “No no, it’s okay. It was nice to be treated as normal for a few minutes.”

“I mean, I can continue to treat you like a normal person if you want. I don’t mind informalities.”

He nods his head. “Thanks. Do you know why he sent me here to find you?”

You nod. “Yeah. He assigned me to help you out around here.”

“Well, you’ve been doing great so far. Really helped me with that door.”

“Glad to hear I’m doing something right then. Would you like me to explain how all of the doors that are on board work for you, Steve? There’s all different types of doors.” You look at your watch for the time. “Actually, we should probably head back to the bridge. Who knows when you’ll be needed.”

“Is that a watch?”

You nod, and then motion to the door for him to follow you. “What, haven’t seen a digital clock since you woke up?”

“Not really. I’ve been sticking with more old school stuff. Slowly get used to the new technology. It might take a while. How does it work?”

“You’re asking the wrong person for that. I don’t know much about science. The best I can tell you is there’s some kind of timekeeping mechanism inside that sends signals to the lights on the surface to change the numbers.” You lead him back to the bridge. “How about, when this whole tesseract thing is all over, you and me sit down and I can show you a thing or two about how to use technology. Maybe I’ll even throw in some tips on how to properly use doors.”

He smiles as you hold a door open for him. “That sounds great. I’ve been hearing about how convenient it is to carry around a phone. I think it would be nice to have one and know how to use it properly.”

You shake your head. “Yeah, you really need some help.”

The two of you enter the bridge and he sits down at the table. You stand against the wall behind him.

After a few minutes, some facial recognition scans go off. Fury turns to Steve. “Captain, you’re up.”


	24. Left Behind

You lead Steve to a room that holds field gear, including Steve’s new uniform and his shield. 

“I’ll wait outside so you can change.” You leave the room and stand just outside the door, so that when he leaves he will still see you.

He comes out in his suit and you motion for him to follow you. “Natasha is piloting a quinjet for you.” You reach the hangar and point to it. “Here’s where I leave you. Good luck.”

“Thanks.” He walks over to the quinjet, so you turn around and head back for the bridge.

When you get there, you sit back at your station and pull up another facial recognition program, trying to find Clint.

After a while Fury announces, “Loki has been caught, they are bringing him back now for us to question him.” He turns to an agent. “Go ready the detention cell for our guest. (Y/N), take a team to be ready for the quinjet, so you can be there for Captain Rogers and the men can escort Loki to his cell.”

“Yes Sir.” You get up and collect a few agents before heading to wait on the landing site. It takes them a lot longer than it should have to arrive. When they finally do, the team with you immediately go to escort Loki to his holding cell. There’s an extra person on the quinjet that you haven't seen before, and must have been the reason they took so long to arrive. 

When the new guy gets close, you realize that you do know him. 

“Hey, you’re Thor, right? You were the one that was beating everyone up in New Mexico?”

He looks at you and seems to recognize you as well. “Ah, yes, my friend. I am sorry about what happened that day, when I tried to reclaim my hammer. I remember you, you were a formidable fighter. One of the few who managed to hit me.”

Steve walks over to us. “You guys have met before?”

“Yeah, he gave me a black eye, bruised ribs and a concussion.”

“I do not know what those are, but please accept my deepest apologies for harming you.”

“It’s okay, Thor. I’m all good now. Besides, the destroyer definitely did more damage to me than you did. We should head to the bridge in case you are needed.”

Natasha walks over and joins the group. “We could’ve used you, (Y/N). There were a few explosions.”

“It didn’t sound to me like there was much of a firefight. Besides,” You hold up your wrist. “Not like I can do anything.” You turn away before something else is said, and start to walk out. You can hear footsteps following behind you.

Steve and Thor follow you to the bridge, and once you get back to your station, Natasha brings in Stark and someone else with dark, curly hair. You assume that it’s Dr. Banner. They all sit around the table and watch Fury talk to Loki. Your facial recognition is still not finding anything on Clint.

Leaving the computer running, you get up and walk over to everyone around the table. You make eye contact with Stark, and he frowns. 

“Useless, what are you doing here?”

“I’m an Agent at S.H.I.E.L.D., or did you forget that already? It wouldn’t surprise me.”

He purses his lips, but keeps quiet. You turn to Steve. “You have a comm, right? I need to go get something. If you need me while I’m out, just call for me.”

He nods, and you leave the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for over 100 Kudos! It means a lot <3


	25. Loki Schemes

You probably should have stayed in the bridge for if something happened, but you really just needed some time to yourself to blow off some steam. Needing to get something was just an excuse to get out of the room. The problem is, you don’t know what is bothering you.

You wander around with no real direction as you let your thoughts take over, so you can sort them out and be ready for your next assignment. You wander into an empty room, and decide to sit down against the wall.

“I know someone is there. You might as well come down, we can have a little chat.”

You jump, and realize you had wandered right into the second floor of the detention cell. You look over the railing and see the top of the cell in use.

Instead of heading back like you should, you decide to go down. Hopping over the railing, you land down in front of the cell and do a somersault so you don’t hurt yourself. Standing up, you look into the cell to see Loki smiling at you.

“I had hoped we would meet.”

You look at him confused. “The only time I’ve seen you was the two seconds when you were getting off of the quinjet. What makes me so special that you wanted to talk to me after two seconds?”

He continues to speak with his ghoulish grin. “The first time you have seen me, maybe. But that was not the first time I have seen you. You were the one who I hit with the Destroyer’s magic, and yet you came out unscathed. How did that happen?”

You stand your ground. “I don’t think you’re in a position to be asking questions, Loki.”

He turns and starts pacing slowly. “Maybe not, but I’m sure I will get my answer eventually. Something had to draw you here, did it not?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Your director made it fairly clear that there would not be many people coming in through here, and yet not too long after he left, you came wandering in. So, what is it that you want?”

You shake your head, trying to clear out the confusion. “No, I didn’t come here wanting anything. I was just walking around, trying to sort out my thoughts. I didn’t mean to come here, specifically.”

He purses his lips. “Well, something had to bring you here. Maybe, deep down, there is something you desperately want, and the only person who seems to be able to help is me?”

You think about it, and then your eyes briefly go to your braces. You thought it wasn’t noticeable, but the ghoulish grin creeps back onto Loki’s face.

“Oh, I see. I’m not the only prisoner on this floating fortress, am I? Tell me, is it really me who should be in here, or should it be you?”

You turn away from him and work on slowing your breathing before you freak out. You then walk out without looking back at the cell, but you can hear the maniacal giggling ringing out behind you. You want to do everything you can to get the conversation out of your head, but you know that it’s going to be nearly impossible.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow I can't believe we've reached 2000 hits already! Thank you all so much!


	26. Phase Two

You decide walking isn’t going to help anymore. You need to actually do something if you are going to forget what Loki said. Which is why you are relieved when you find Steve on your way back, studying a door.

“Still not sure how to work doors, are we?” You ask him.

“Oh, uh, hi. This door has some sort of lock on it that won’t let me through.”

You look at the door and realize where you are. “That’s because you don’t have permission to go in, Steve. Not a lot of people are allowed in there, there's something secret hiding. If you need help, why didn’t you ask?”

He purses his lips. “Well, I technically am sneaking around right now, so I didn’t think you would be able to help, or you would have to stop me.”

You put your hand on his shoulder. “Hey, Fury only told me to help you around the place. He never said to keep you out of trouble. We’re also not on the best terms right now, I don’t like the guy that much. So, I can tell you that the door slides to the right and if you pull at it I’m sure you can get it open.”

He smiles and walks over to the door. “We know Fury’s hiding something from us with the tesseract. Why is it so important we get it back? So, Stark is running a program to hack into the database. But I thought I’d look for some physical proof.” He pops the door open and quietly slides it just enough that he can fit in. You follow through the door behind him. 

The two of you quietly sneak around, watching each others backs. Steve spots a row of some sort of containers and goes over to it, easily breaking the latches on it. Inside, clear as day, is a weapon with a hydra symbol on it.

“Well, I don’t know what I was expecting, but I don’t think it was this,” you whisper.

“I’m gonna take it back to the lab. Will you help me get it back there without anyone knowing?”

“If we get to set a fire under Fury’s ass, then hell yes. I’m in. I mean, I did come in here with you, did you expect me to not continue to help?”

He shrugs. “I wasn’t sure how far you were going to go.” He picks up the weapon and lets you lead the way out.

“Hey, I was the one that let you in here. Of course I’m doing this.”

You find your way back to the lab without getting caught and hear Stark speaking as you approach.

“Tell me, what is Phase Two?”

You and Steve walk in and Steve throws the gun onto a table behind Fury. “Phase Two is where S.H.I.E.L.D. uses the cube to make weapons. Sorry, the computer was running a little slow for me.”

Fury sighs. “Okay, we were going to make weapons. After Thor first came to earth, we realized we had nothing in place strong enough to defend ourselves from some of the things that were out there.”

Natasha comes in. “Dr. Banner, you may want to remove yourself.”

You take over Fury’s focus since Natasha cut him off. “So you thought that we’re just going to hide behind a bunch of weapons? Not care about how anyone may feel? I read the files you gave me. Hydra was literally insane, and yet here’s one of their weapons you were trying to replicate. How is S.H.I.E.L.D. any different right now?”

“I told you, (Y/N), the council made the decision to put those braces on you. The council also decided to make the weapons.”

“Then here’s a thought, maybe we should stop listening to the council! They keep coming up with all these stupid ass ideas. Why should you have to listen to them? You’re the head of S.H.I.E.L.D.. Make your own damn decision for once.”

The room has now evolved into a full blown argument among everyone. Insults are being thrown around like a piñata just cracked open.

“You want to know my secret, Agent Romanov? You wanna know how I stay calm?” Dr. Banners voice rings out through the room, stopping the other arguments. 

“Dr. Banner,” Steve says slowly, “Put the scepter down.”

He looks at his hand as if he didn’t realize he had picked it up. “Sorry. No party tricks today.” He then replaces it on the table. A computer goes off in the lab, so he goes over to check it.

You look down at your watch, your fingers grazing the buttons on the side.

And as if the moment couldn’t get any worse, there’s an explosion somewhere on the helicarrier that causes the lab to explode as well.


	27. Helicarrier Havoc

Lucky for you, the explosion only knocked you over, into a pile with Steve and Stark. The three of you scramble to get up.

Steve and Stark run out of the room together, with Steve saying, “Put on the suit.”

You decide not to follow them and instead head for the bridge. You think you’ll be more useful there than anywhere else. Running to your computer, you pull up everything you can, trying to find anything that might help.

From across the room, you hear Maria Hill say, “External detonation. Number three engine is down. We lose one more engine and we fall.”

Stark calls out through the comms, “Cap and I are on it, we’ll see what we can do.”

Fury comes into the bridge and starts giving out orders. Your computer skills are not enough help, so you decide hunting down the intruders may be better use of your time. As you go to leave the bridge, Maria ends up walking next to you, with a couple of agents following her.

Some small object catches your eye as it lands on the floor in front of the two of you. Maria yells, “Grenade, get down!”

You quickly step in front of her and take the force of the grenade, which sends both of you falling over the railing next to you. As you fall, you manage to hit your head on the desk. As quick as you can, you stand up and draw your gun, aiming for the door. Maria stands up next to you, with a small cut on the side of her head. You imagine that your head looks similar to hers.

You, Maria, and Fury train your guns on the entrance to the bridge, shooting everyone who comes in.

“They are not getting in here, so why are they –” Fury is cut off as an arrow whizzes by your head, exploding the computers behind you. Another explosion across the room follows, and then another arrow is fired, hitting one of the computers that are still intact.. Looking in the direction it had been shot from, you see Clint for a second before he runs off.

Fury sends orders for someone to go and find him as you run over to the computer and see that he had fried the servers, which took out another engine. Now the helicarrier is starting to lean sideways, as the one side no longer has running engines to keep it up. 

You call out through the comms, “Stark, we're losing altitude. How soon will you have that engine fixed?”

“I noticed. We’re working on it, as fast as we can. It’s not as easy as you would think since I brought the dinosaur with me and he doesn’t know a thing about technology.”

“Do you need me to come out there?”

“Nothing you can do. At this point it’s just kick-starting the fan, it should be working shortly.”

Fury leaves the room as you pull the arrow out of the computers to make sure it doesn’t do anymore damage. Not too long after, the helicarrier starts to level itself out again, and you see a quinjet flying off into the distance. Everything seems to have grown quiet now, and soon medics arrive on the scene to treat everyone who had been injured. 

Someone approaches you. “Looks like you banged your face up some. Would you let me look at it?”

You nod and he takes a clean rag out to start cleaning your face off. As you stand there, you hear people over the comms talking about different places people are hurt. Natasha had found Clint and managed to knock him out. There was a hangar that Hulk had attacked and there were a few injured there.

“Agent Coulson is down.”

“A medical team is on your way.”

“They’re here. They called it.”


	28. Fury-ous

You find yourself sitting at the table in the bridge with Steve and Stark after everyone had been treated by the medics. Thor and the Hulk have disappeared, and Natasha is with Clint, to make sure when he wakes up that Loki’s mind control is gone. Fury and Maria Hill stand at the front of the table. Everyone is quiet, upset over losing Coulson.

Fury is the first one to talk. “We found these in Coulson’s jacket.” He tosses a handful of bloodied cards towards Steve. “I guess he never did get you to sign them.”

Steve picks one of them up and flips it over in his hand. No one says anything, so Fury continues.

“Yes, we were building an arsenal with the Tesseract. I never fully backed that though, because I was focused on something even riskier. There was an idea. Stark knows this. So does (Y/N). We were going to put a team together, to help fight the battles we couldn’t. Phil Coulson died still believing in that idea. In heroes.”

Stark stands up fast, clearly upset. He then walks out of the bridge without a word.

“Well, it’s an old fashioned notion.”

You stand up fast and slam your hands down on the table. “You know what? No. I'm not listening to this shit anymore. Coulson died. He sacrificed his life to try and stop Loki. At least he was able to do the best that he could. He went out after doing _everything_ he could. But me? I'm stuck in these damn braces, so I can't do everything that I can. I wasn't able to help fight more than aiming a gun at some people. If you hadn't put these damn things on me then maybe–” your voice gets stuck in your throat and you can feel tears running down your cheeks. “Maybe I could have saved him,” you say, quietly.

The room is silent after you finish. You keep your eyes on the table in front of you, not wanting to look anyone in the eyes. You can feel everyone looking at you, and you can’t stand the silence anymore. You move away from the table and walk out the door.

“Agent (Y/N)...”

You ignore Fury and continue to walk. Not long after you hear footsteps behind you. You turn to look and see Steve down the other end of the hall. You turn back around and wipe the tears from your face, but you don’t move, allowing him to catch up to you.

“Hey, (Y/N).”

“Steve.” You continue to face the other direction.

“I just wanted to make sure you were alright.”

“I’m fine.”

He shifts his weight. “Well, know you aren’t alone in this. There are plenty of people you can talk to to help if you need.”

You look at him over your shoulder and offer him a small smile. “Thanks.”

You start to walk again, and you hear him go in a different direction. Eventually, you find yourself in the ship’s gym. Eying the punching bag, you wrap your hands, ready to get some built up tension out.


	29. Free At Last

You haven’t left the gym in a few hours. No one else had been there with you, and you found it was nice to be alone. You were doing pull ups when someone finally came in to disturb your peace.

“Agent (Y/N),” Fury calls from the other side of the room.

You continue with your pull ups. “Not in the mood for this.”

“I’m here to apologize.”

You look over at him, and he seems to be serious. You hop down from the bar and wipe your hands off as you turn to face him. 

“You were right.”

You arch your eyebrow. “Excuse me?”

“You were right. I shouldn’t have listened to the World Security Council. They only have their best interests in mind, and don’t care about anything else.” He turns and walks to the window. “They found Loki. Somehow. Stark, Romanov, Barton, and Captain Rogers all left to go after him. But before they left, Stark asked a favor of me.”

“And what was that?”

He turns back to face you. “He needs your help. Said to tell you to find Banner and follow him. Do you know how to do that?”

You nod your head. “Damn. I don’t know how he found out.”

Fury holds his hand out. “Well, however you’re going to find him, there’s a quinjet and a pilot waiting for you.” 

You take your watch off and lift your hands, and Fury snags the braces, doing whatever he needed to do to take them off. He then puts two earpieces in your hand. You roll your wrists a few times, replace your watch, and then run out of the room. 

Once you make it to the room that holds all the field gear, you find your fireproof outfit and put it on. You grab a gun and a knife too, because you can never be too safe. You then check your watch. The little red dot from your tracking device is still close, and it doesn’t look like Banner has moved yet. Running to the quinjet, you give the pilot the coordinates on your watch.

The pilot opens the back door once you get close, and when it gets low enough, you jump out and then roll a few feet before the energy dissipates. The quinjet flies away and you spot Banner leaving a nearby building.

“Dr. Banner!” You call out to him. He looks around and spots you, and you run over to him. “You know where we’re going?”

He nods. “New York. Probably Stark Tower. How’d you find me?” 

Pointing to your watch, you say, “Friend made it. It has a tracking device which was on you.” You hold one of the buttons in, and the red dot disappears, replaced with the time. “And now it’s no longer on you.” You toss him one of the earpieces and put the other one in your own ear. “Stark’s waiting for us.” Looking around, you spot two motorcycles nearby and point to them. “You know hot to hot-wire?”

He nods and quickly starts on the bikes, and in a few minutes has them both up and running. You hop on one as he mounts the other, and follow him out to the road. The two of you make your way through traffic as fast as you can, keeping an eye on whatever the strange looking thing is in the sky above the city as you get close.


	30. New York

You and Banner weave through the chaos on the streets with your motorcycles, trying to find at least one of the others. Cars are overturned everywhere, and people are running into buildings to take shelter from the aliens flying around and attacking everything. 

Some red white and blue catches your eye and you look to see Steve in his Captain America costume a few blocks away. You point him out to Banner and the two of you turn towards him. Then you see that Thor, Natasha, and Clint are also there with him. The only one missing is Stark.

As the two of you pull up to them, they all look at you.

Steve speaks into his comms. “Stark, we got them. Just like you said.”

Your comms connect with the rest of the team, and you hear Stark say, “Tell Banner to suit up. I’m bringing the party to you.”

He flies around a corner a few blocks away, and a few seconds later a giant Chitauri Leviathan turns the corner behind him.

“I don’t see how that’s a party,” comments Natasha.

“Dr. Banner, now might be a really good time to get angry.”

Banner starts to walk towards Stark and the alien. “That’s my secret, Cap.” He looks back at us over his shoulder. “I’m always angry.”

His shirt rips apart as he grows, turning into the Hulk. He then punches the Chitauri Leviathan in the face and it starts to crumple up.

“Heads up!” Stark shoots some rockets at an opening on it. You put your arm up in front of your face to shield it from any debris. Once the explosion from the rockets is gone, you move your arm and see Stark fly over you to attack some more Chitauri.

“I guess I owe you one, Stark. Thanks for convincing Fury to let me go.”

“Yeah, I noticed those braces were missing.” He pauses. “I think I know how you can return the favor.” He comes back in view with a couple of the Chitauri following him. “I’ve picked up a few tails. Show ‘em whatever got you locked up in the first place.”

You smile. “Gladly.” You then curl your hands into fists and feel your insides boil. You ignite and quickly throw fire at all the Chitauri following him, killing them.

“Well, damn,” says Stark, flying back near you again.

There’s a loud screeching noise and you look up to see two more of the big Leviathans coming out of the portal, along with a bunch of normal Chitauri. 

Stark lands in the middle of your group. "Call it, Captain!"

"Alright, listen up. Until we can close that portal, our priority's containment.” He points to a nearby building. “Barton, I want you on that roof, eyes on everything. Call out patterns and strays. Stark, you got the perimeter. Anything gets more than three blocks out, you turn it back or you turn it to ash."

"Want to give me a lift?" asks Clint.

"Right. Better clench up, Legolas."

"Thor, you gotta try and bottleneck that portal. Slow 'em down. You got the lightning. Light the bastards up.” He then gestures to you and Natasha. “The three of us, we stay here on the ground, keep the fighting here. And Hulk? Smash!"

You duck behind a car as some Chitauri shoot at you. “Is now a bad time to mention that I have next to no training with my fire?” You shoot a fireball at them and it explodes, killing three of them.

“You’ll be fine, (Y/N). If I can shoot them out of the sky with just a bow an arrow, you sure as hell can get them with your fire.”

“Thanks, Clint. I guess.” You throw another fireball at some flying past you in the air, and it manages to take two of the ships out. You hear noise below you and look over the bridge to see some Chitauri attacking a building that a group of civilians are in. You move your hands to face them, and shoot a beam of fire out of your hands. Suddenly, you are flying up through the air. You land hard on your back on top of the building Clint is on. 

“Hey, Clint. You good up here?”

He turns to look at you. “(Y/N), how the hell did you get up here?”

You stand up and brush yourself off, and then punch an attacking Chitauri in the face, killing it. “I’m not quite sure. I think I flew?”

He shakes his head and notches an arrow, letting it fly out into the sea of Chitauri ships. “You know, back in New Mexico, when we were talking about showing each other what we can do someday? This is not how I imagined it.”

You shoot down a couple more ships with fireballs. “Yeah, I thought it was going to be at HQ, we go down to the range and you show me your bow skills, and then we go up to that mostly fireproof room and I show you a bit of what I can do. Not anywhere near the public eye.” 

You watch as Hulk and Thor fly past you on one of the big Chitauri Leviathans, ripping it apart piece by piece.

“I should probably make my way back down. There’s enough people in the air, we don’t want everyone on the ground being overwhelmed.”

Clint shoots an arrow and it explodes, taking a few ships down with it. “Stairs are over there. Unless you want to try to fly again?”

You shrug and concentrate on making the fire beams again. They slowly form, like you wanted them to, and start to lift you in the air. You angle your hands up a small bit, and you start to go backwards, now off of the roof.

Clint shoots an arrow directly past you. “Try not to run into any buildings on your decent.”

You nod and let the beams go for a small second, which drops you a few feet, but then they come back and you are hovering in the air again. You repeat this until you are in a safe distance to drop completely to the ground. You land right on top of one of the Chitauri that was fighting Steve and you wrap your legs around it, hitting it in the head until it dies.

It falls over with you still on top of it, and you grunt when you land on the rubble strewn pavement. Your fire flickers out as more Chitauri spot Steve and start to attack.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Haha some cliff hanger there, huh? Part 2/2 of the NY battle next week :) Thank you all for your support, it means a lot! <3


	31. Chitauri Collapse

Steve makes quick work of the Chitauri, using his shield to help kill them. “You okay, (Y/N)?” He extends his hand down and you take it. He then helps you back to your feet.

“Ugh. Yeah, sorry. They’re a lot heavier than they look, and falling over onto hard, uneven ground with one of them on top of you is not fun. At all.” You wince and put your hand to your side, and when you bring it back, you see blood. “Huh. Must have grazed it.” You put your hand back and press against your side to try and stop the blood.

Another wave of Chitauri finds the two of you, and Steve steps in front of you with his shield up, ready to fight them. At the same time, some Chitauri ships fly past and shoot at you, exploding the cars nearby. Before the fire can disappear, you instinctively throw your unoccupied hand out in the direction of the fire. It starts to disappear, the flames moving towards you and coiling around your arm. You then move your other hand off of your side and in the direction of the Chitauri, and the fire coils down that arm and leaves out of your hand, enveloping the group and burning them all to ash.

Steve turns around and looks at you. “How long have you had these powers?”

You shrug. “A few months now, I guess. Still learning all different things I can do.”

You hear the sound of Chitauri behind you and see Steve tense up, ready to fight. You turn around and watch as they are all electrocuted, and then Thor lands next to the two of you.

“It seems that the two of you are in need of some help.”

You look down at your hand and watch as fire flickers across it, but then disappears. “We’d appreciate it, Thor. It seems like my powers have an energy limit, and I think I am almost at that limit.”

You pull your gun out and cock it, ready for the next attack to come.

Natasha yells through the comms, “I can close it, can anyone read me, I can close the portal.”

Steve is the first to respond. “Do it!”

“No!” Stark immediately replies. “Wait. I’ve got a nuke coming in, and I know just where to put it.”

You see more Chitauri ships coming towards you and they start to shoot. You look around for something to hide behind, but before you can find something Steve grabs your arm and pulls you close, shielding the two of you from the incoming missiles. Thor shoots some lightning at them, and they explode as they fall to the ground. Steve lets go of you and throws his shield at a Chitauri on the ground, and you take the fire from the explosions to kill a few other Chitauri. You then shoot a few in the head, killing them instantly. You let another shot off and the Chitauri you were aiming at falls, but so do all of the others. You look around and see all of the Chitauri are falling down, and then look up at the portal and see that Stark successfully sent the nuke through the portal. 

Steve and Thor look up too, and the three of you keep your eyes on the growing explosion, not seeing Stark leave.

“Close it,” Steve says, knowing if they keep it open the explosion will come right out of the portal into the streets of New York. You look at him and nod, it was the right thing to do.

The portal starts to close, and everyone keeps their eyes on it. When it finally vanishes, you can see Stark falling.

“Son of a gun,” Steve says with a smile. 

You notice that he’s not slowing down though. “He’s not slowing down, he must be unconscious!”

Thor starts to twirl his hammer so that he can fly up to catch Stark, but before he can get off of the ground, Hulk comes jumping in from somewhere and snatches him right out of the sky, bringing him safely to the ground. 

You walk over to him and Thor rips his mask off. You all stare at him, waiting for something to happen. Hulk roars, and it startles Stark awake. You can’t help a smile from spreading across your face.

“What the hell.” He huffs. “ What happened? Please tell me no one kissed me.”

Steve shakes his head. “We won.”

Thor helps Stark up off of the ground and everyone makes their way up to the top of Stark Tower to get Loki. You find him there unconscious, but almost awake.

“We should pose in front of him and look intimidating so he surrenders,” says Clint.

“That sounds stupid,” you respond, but you find everyone is circling around in front of him anyways, and Clint even aims an arrow at him. He holds his hand up, surrendering. 

“If it’s all the same to you, I’ll have that drink now,” he directs to Stark, who smirks.

Thor then picks him up and works on restraining him. Stark takes his broken suit off as he searches through his cabinets for something. “I thought they were still here… Ah, there they are.”

He tosses a couple of rolls of gauze out, and picks one up for himself.

You grab two, and take one over to Steve, who just came back into the room after taking his costume off and changing.

“Here, didn’t you get shot?”

He nods and takes the gauze from you. “Thanks.”

You lift your shirt up just enough to access the wound on your side and see that it’s large, but not very deep. You clean it and then wrap it up, making sure the bandage won’t fall off.

Soon everyone has cleaned up, and you all make your way down to a nearby park. Thor has the tesseract in a container, as well as Loki with a muzzle and chains. You say your goodbyes and then they leave, using the tesseract to take them back to Asgard.

Everyone else says their goodbyes and start to head off in different directions.

“Hey Steve,” You call out as he mounts his motorcycle. “Let me know when you want that course on technology.”

He smiles and nods. “I will.” He then starts the bike and drives off. Banner and Stark leave together in one of Stark's sports cars, probably going back to the tower.

“Hey, (Y/N).” Clint comes walking over to you. “Before you leave, I wanted to give you this.” He hands you a slip of paper.

You take it, and see a phone number written on it. “What’s this for?”

He shrugs. “Figured who knows when we’ll all be together other again, so we can spend the time texting each other. Plus, if I’m spending all my time with Nat, I’m going to need someone that’ll appreciate my jokes.”

A taxi pulls up for you.

“Thanks, Clint. I’ll text you soon so you can have my number.”

He nods and walks back over to Natasha.

“JFK International, please,” you say to the driver as you slide into the back seat. You have a flight to catch to get back to D.C.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, it's the end of the first Avenger's movie already! Thank you all for reading so far, it means a lot! Up next I promise we're gonna work more on your relationship with Steve, but at this point romance is kind of secondary, focusing more on making you a part of the mcu. Sorry if that upsets some of you, but I hope you'll stick around for more Avengers fun!


	32. Home Sweet Home

After a few long weeks on the helicarrier and the Chitauri invasion in New York, you were happy when you stepped off of the plane at Reagan. A taxi was waiting for you when you left, and now you’re finally back to your apartment building.

The taxi pulls away after you pay, and you stare up at the building for a few seconds. After everything that happened recently, it just all seems so normal. Almost too normal. Not many people can say they successfully stopped an alien invasion. In fact, you only know six other people who can claim that. 

Your phone vibrating in your pocket pulls you out of your thoughts. You pull it out and see that you have a text. Instead of reading it, you put your phone back in your pocket. You can read it once you get back inside your apartment. 

Opening the door, you beeline for the mailboxes, knowing there had to be a backup of mail after you’ve been gone for so long. You pull the key out of your pocket and open the mailbox. Like you expected, it is almost completely full, with hardly any more room left. You pull everything out and put it in your bag, so it’s easier to carry everything up the stairs. 

A man’s voice calls out from next to you, “Hey there, free for dinner any time soon?”

You sigh. “No, Harris. I don’t have any free time right now, and I don’t see any coming in the foreseeable future. Now if you will let me finish getting my mail?”

He leans against the other mailboxes, clearly not done. “You’ve been gone for quite a while again. Let me guess, another business trip?”

You give a small nod. “Yes.” Then you close your mailbox and pocket the key.

“They sure do send you out on a bunch of business trips. Are you sure you can’t ask for some time off because they send you out so much?”

You shoulder your bag and head for the stairs, calling out behind you, “I’m sure. I don’t want to take off either, I need the money. Now, I would appreciate it if you would leave me alone. I have things to do.” You walk up the stairs without letting him answer and quickly unlock your apartment door and lock it behind you. 

Walking through the apartment, you drop your bag onto the floor in front of the couch and then collapse onto it, glad to be in a familiar place. You finally take your phone out to read the text you got earlier.  
 _  
Bow N Sparrow: u make it home ok?_

_Im in 1 piece and not on fire, so I guess?  
_  
You send the text and pull your bag over to sort through the mail.  
 _  
Bow N Sparrow: Id say it counts. Even tho bein on fire isnt a bad thing 4u. If I was on fire, that wouldnt be good_

_Next time I see u I can light u on fire and we'll see  
_  
Most of the mail is just junk, so you can throw it away. The rest isn’t important right now, so you toss them to the side and turn the TV on. You don’t bother to change the channel because you know everywhere you go they’re just going to be talking about New York, so you might as well leave it there.  
 __  
Bow N Sparrow: I think nat would enjoy watching me run around on fire

_Then invite her 2, I’ll make some popcorn ;)_

_Bow N Sparrow: Great we’ll make it a party  
_  
You get a new text, this time from a number you don’t have saved.  
 _  
Unknown: Don’t ask how I got your number, that’s not important. What is important is how do you light yourself on fire?  
_  
There are only a few people who know about your fire, so you throw a name at random.  
 __  
Stark?

_Unknown: Uh duh who else would be asking you ridiculous questions over text_

_Its a long story, text might not be good 4 it  
_  
You save his number as you wait for a response.  
 __  
Iron Can: I don’t care, jarvis will just read it out to me anyways

_I’ll do my best to keep it brief. I came in contact with a substance known as terrigen. If u have the right dna it changes ur dna and gives u powers. I got fire obvi, tho its hard to control when i get angry. Still learning about stuff i can do with it. If not angry, I gotta concentrate and itll come up. Thats all I know_

_Iron Can: seems intense_

_Y r u writing everything out perfectly that doesnt seem like you_

_Iron Can: Who said I’m writing it? I’m in my garage working on a new suit and saying everything out loud to jarvis. He’s the one typing everything out and sending it_

_Yeah that sounds more like u  
_  
Clint sends you another text, so you switch over to his chat.  
 __  
Bow N Sparrow: Do u wanna play a game? Im gettin bored by myself

_Hit me_

_Bow N Sparrow: Lets play the most ridiculous game of would u rather anyones ever seen. I’ll start, give me a sec to think  
_  
Another text comes in, not from Clint.  
 __  
Iron Can: Did I hear right you’re gonna give red white and blue a course on tech?

_I offered. He has to accept_

_Iron Can: Don’t give him my number until he knows how to text, I don’t think I can handle watching the learning process_

_Cant make promises sorry :)_  
  
You spend the rest of the evening on your phone texting the two of them until you fall asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really bad at shortening my words when I text so sorry if any of the texting seems weird lol  
> Thanks for reading! It means a lot to me <3


	33. New View

You take the next day off to be able to rest, not caring that you told Harris you can’t take off. After that, it’s back to your normal schedule. Wake up early in the morning, eat something, shower, brush your teeth, get dressed, and head to work. After the New York excitement, you could use some time to just sit and do normal things at a computer.

You walk into the Triskelion right on time, and everyone looks at you as they pass. Who wouldn’t though? If you hadn’t been one of the people who saved New York, you're sure you’d be looking at one of the other six in the same way.

Once you make it to your office, you notice the room is a lot crazier than normal. There are people running all over the place, trying to get something done as quick as they can. The last time you saw it this crazy was when an unidentified Iron Man had made the news, back before you got your powers.

When you get to your desk, you see a handful of boxes, along with Director Fury.

“Director Fury, sir,” you say as you approach him. “Is everything okay?”

“Agent (Y/N), pack your things. You’re moving.”

“Can I ask the reason?”

“You’re being promoted. We need you up in level six. You will be moving up a few floors, and will be given a private office, to avoid anyone constantly asking questions about what happened. Pack up your things, and come to my office when you are done.”

“Yes sir.” He walks away, and you immediately start to empty the drawers of your desk. Most of it is important papers you were holding on to. There’s a couple of small knick knacks on your desk to make it look not so boring, so you pack those up too. Soon, your desk has no trace left that you used it, besides your fingerprints.

You manage to carry the two boxes you filled at the same time, and make your way to Director Fury’s office. He sees you in the hallway before you make it to his office, so he comes out to you. 

“Follow me, (Y/N).” 

He leads you to the elevator, which is already on this floor.

“Office Six A,” he says as he walks into the elevator.

“Confirmed,” the elevator says back to him.

“Six A?” you ask as the doors close.

“There are several sections for offices of all ranks. We separate them by letters to avoid confusion.”

The doors open when you reach the floor and Fury leads you out through them. The floor is full of offices with actual walls and doors, each marked with a fancy nameplate. You stop in front of the one labeled with your name, and Fury opens the door for you. 

The lights aren’t on, but the room is still well lit, with giant windows covering one of the walls. On the wall opposite the windows is a big TV screen, and the other two walls have lamps on them. Your desk sits in front of the windows, facing the TV. 

You sit the boxes down on your desk, and see that sitting in the middle of the desk is the arm braces. You quickly turn to Fury to say something, but he holds his hand up, stopping you.

“They’re not here for you to put back on. There here because I wanted you to have them, to do what you wanted with them. Inside them is the only coding left for stopping your powers. You destroy them, no one will be able to stop your powers again, unless you let them sit and research you. All the files we have on you are restricted to everyone, so no one will get to see the research we have already done.”

You look at him. “Thank you.”

He nods. “I’ll leave you to set up.”

He leaves the room and closes the door behind him. You sit at your desk and turn the computer on, and then pick the braces up. You turn them over in your hands, studying them. You then find a trash can and bring it over to your desk. You hold the two braces in one hand, and hold that hand over the trash can. You stare at them, concentrating. They start so smoke, and you see your arm start to crack. The fire then ignites and sets the gauntlets on fire, their ash falling into the trash below. 

Once they are completely gone, you let your fire go out, and brush your hand off into the trash can. You then turn back to your desk with a smile, and start to empty out the boxes into your desk.


	34. Tech-Not Savvy

You like having the new office. It’s nice and quiet most of the time, so you don’t have to worry about anyone distracting you while you are doing something important. You keep your door open most of the time as well, but the only person who has come in so far is Brooke, who came to take your fireproof outfit and fix it for you. She said she’ll be back soon, so for now, you just have to try not to set yourself on fire. 

As you are checking your email, you hear a knock at the door, even though its open, and you look up. A smile spreads across your face.

“Hi, Steve.”

“Hey, (Y/N). Am I interrupting anything?”

You shake your head. “No, not at all. I was just reading through some emails. What’s up?”

He steps into the room and speaks. “I decided that I’m going to work for S.H.I.E.L.D. They’ve already accepted me and everything, it’s just…” He trails off and reaches into his pocket and pulls out a phone. “They gave me this, but I have no idea how to use it. And you said you would be willing to help…”

“Yeah, of course!” You close your email and move to the couch you brought in that is sitting in front of the TV. “I didn’t have anything to do today, so you’re saving me from having a really boring day.”

Steve sits on the couch, and you sit next to him, pulling your phone out. As you do, it vibrates. 

_Bow N Sparrow: Would u rather use caps shield or my bow_

_The shield id never be able to shoot a thing with ur bow_

Whenever one of the two of you is bored, you start up the game of would you rather again. Sometimes it can get pretty interesting.

“Sorry, that was Clint that texted me. Now, the first thing you’re going to want to do is turn on the phone.” You reach over to the phone in his and and point the power button out. “Just press it, and it should turn on.”

You decide to send Clint another text as Steve’s phone is turning on. _Would u rather help stark build a suit or help steve with tech_

“Okay, now it’s completely on.”

He stares at it for a few seconds before saying anything. “Wow, there sure are a lot of things on here.”

You laugh. “Yeah, they’re called apps. You can even install more, there’s entire online stores full of them. It would take forever to try and teach you how to use all of them, so for right now, we should go over the necessities.” You point to one of the apps on the screen. “You see that one? Tap it with your finger. It’s your contacts, which is where you can store other people’s numbers so you don’t have to remember them.”

He hits the screen with more force than necessary. “Now what?”

“First, you don’t need to hit it that hard. Just a light tap will do it, as long as your finger is on the screen. Tap that plus sign to create a contact.” He does, and you pull the phone out of his hands and add your number into it. You then hand it back to him. “See, now you have my number. You can add a name by tapping the place that says name there. A keyboard will pop up.”

He uses one finger to type on the keyboard, putting in your full name. “Like that?”

You giggle. “Yes, but you don’t have to put full names. You can do just a first name, or even some silly nickname. If you like it though, hit the save there.”

You walk him through the process two more times, giving him Clint and Stark’s numbers.

“Okay, hit the arrow down at the bottom to go back.” You point to the screen again. “That one is calling, where you can either type in a number, or look through your contacts and call one of them.” You then move your finger to a different app. “This one is for texting. Go ahead and open it.”

“So from here, I can send letters to people electronically?”

You try to hold back your laughter and answer, “Yes, basically. If you tap that, you can start a conversation with me, and then tapping that one will bring the keyboard up so you can write the text you want to send. Then press that button and it will send the text.”

He starts to type again with one finger, so you open up your phone and look at Clint’s response that just came in.

_Bow N Sparrow: Cap. Id never understand stark_

_Thanks 4 volunteering :)_

_Bow N Sparrow: Wait what?_

Your phone vibrates with another text. 

_Unknown: Hello, this is Steve Rogers testing out if this works properly or not. I hope I am doing this right. Regards, Steve Rogers_

You smile. “Your text came through. You don’t have to worry about signing it with your name, once they save your number it will tell them it’s you.”

“Oh, okay, sorry.”

You wave your hand. “No, don’t worry about it. Now, Clint and Stark have graciously agreed to help you learn how to text, so see if you can send them texts without my help.” As he goes back to learning how to text, you add him into your contacts under Ancient Liberty.

“I have a response from Clint. So I guess it worked.”

You look over at him. “Mmhmm, what did it say?”

“So this is what they meant.”

You snort, not expecting that. “Did I mention that I didn’t tell either of them I was going to have you text them?”

His phone vibrates again, and he looks at it. “It’s from Stark. It says, ‘please tell me this isn’t your first text.’” 

You laugh again, not able to contain yourself. “Did you text him or Clint first?”

“Clint.”

“Tell him no, it was your third.”

He types it out and sends it, and you sit there waiting for a response. Your phone vibrates, so you check it.

_Iron Can: I swear to God (Y/N) if you keep this up you’re not going to be ready for what’s coming your way_

“Oh, I almost forgot the most important part! Pull up the keyboard.” He does, and it’s in his texts with Stark. “Put a colon and then an end parenthesis.”

“Why, it looks weird.”

“Look at it sideways. It’s a smiley face!”

He smiles once he can see it, and hits send.

You get another text. 

_Iron Can: You did not just show him how to make emojis_

_I just did. Deal with it_

You sit there with him for a while longer, making sure he has the basics under his belt. 

When you are sure he does, he gets up to leave. You stand with him. “Sorry to take up so much of your time, but thank you for helping me with this. I don’t know how I would have figured it out without you.” He extends his hand.

You take his hand and shake it. “Of course. My door is always open for you. And if it’s not open, you have to push it open.”

He sighs. “That’s not going to go away, is it.”

“Nope!” you say cheerily. “I’ll see you around!”

“Goodbye,” he says as he walks out the door, and you return to your desk.


	35. Missing Stark

You’re busy searching through articles on your computer when your phone buzzes next to you. You open it to see what’s happening.  
 _  
Bow N Sparrow: Did u hear stark’s missing?_

_I wish this was the first time ive heard it  
_  
You sigh as you move back to the articles, trying to determine what exactly happened to Stark’s house.  
 _  
Bow N Sparrow: Y_

_Ive spent the last 24 hours on my computer trying 2 figure out what happened  
_  
Most of the articles are different, making it hard for you to determine what actually happened. They all do agree on one thing though, and that is he gave out his address to the public.  
 _  
Bow N Sparrow: U think somethin happened?_

_Nah, Im sure he got out. Hes probs stuck in some small town without a way to contact anyone  
_  
Another text comes in from someone else.  
 _  
Ancient Liberty: Are you working on finding Stark? I heard almost everyone is._

_Yeah, trying 2 piece together what happened from news  
_  
You pull another article off of the internet, and add what it says to your word document.  
 _  
Ancient Liberty: Are you allowed to tell me what you know so far? I am worried :(_

_I can tell u that he should be fine, this isn’t the first time he’s been missing_  
  
There’s a knock on the door. “Come in.”

Maria Hill walks into the office. “Agent (Y/N).”

“Agent Hill. Is everything alright?”

“Everyone is under the impression that Tony Stark is dead. I wanted to hear your report and get your opinion on it.”

“Well, I can’t say I’ve formed a solid understanding of what happened at his house, but I can tell you what I know so far. Stark was being the idiot that he is and told the public his address. That I can confirm everywhere, and have the video to prove it. After that, I think there was an attack on his house. How, what, or who, I don’t know, but it resulted in an explosion. They have yet to find Stark’s body in what remains of the house.”

She nods her head. “So what do you think of Stark?”

“I think he managed to escape. If he survived a trip through a wormhole with a nuke, he sure as hell found some way to survive that attack. For all I know, he could have located whoever attacked him by now and is on the way to stop them.”

“I didn’t think he was dead either. He’s too smart for that. Why don’t you take a break. Send me the files you’ve made so far, I’ll assign someone else to it.”

“No, it’s okay. I have my energy drinks here, and I will crash for forever if I get a break, so let me finish this and then I’ll stop.”

She shakes her head. “Okay, I will be expecting the report in my email when you finish, and for you to leave as soon as you finish.”

“Yes Ma’am.” She leaves your office and you go back to work, searching for more articles that might give you accurate information.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry the chapter is so short, I figured the whole 'what did the rest of the avengers do when everyone thought Tony was dead' needed to be addressed, and there wasn't much else to write. There's some good things coming soon though :)


	36. Familiar Faces

You crashed hard when you finally left. You were dead to the world for hours. When you do finally wake up again, you heat up leftovers in your fridge to eat, still not awake enough to put any more effort into getting food.

You sit at the counter and eat, zoning out. Until your alarm goes off.

You jump and quickly turn it off. You hadn’t even noticed what time it was. You weren’t expecting to be up yet. Maybe that’s why you still feel sluggish.

Since you’re up already anyways, you decide to get ready to go to work. They’ll probably let you leave early if you need to.

The drive to work is slow, not helping your tiredness at all. When you finally enter the building, you decide to stop by the lab before you go upstairs to your office.

Brooke is there on the other side of the room, with her back facing you. As you start to walk over to her, your foot gets caught on one of the tables and you trip, stumbling into the table and knocking over a bowl.

She jumps when the bowl hits the floor and turns around, and you meet her gaze with a sheepish smile. “Sorry, I think I’m still half asleep.”

She waves it off and walks over to you as you pick it up. “It’s okay, nothing was in the bowl anyways.” She gives you a small hug and then looks you in the eyes, her eyebrows furrowing. “What are you doing here? You spent at least twenty four hours without sleep on that Stark thing. You should be sleeping!”

You smile. “It’s hard to sleep when you’re hungry. Besides, I slept for most of the day yesterday. I’ll be fine.”

“Says the one who tripped over a stationary table.”

You shrug. “Maybe next time I trip, someone will catch me and I’ll look up into their eyes and fall in love,” you tease, sticking your tongue out at the end.

She shakes her head and goes back to her table. “Yeah, okay. Because that will definitely work. Is there even anyone here in the building that you even remotely like?”

“I have a few friends, but nothing more than that. And I don’t even know if they are in today.” You walk over to her table and sit on top of it in an empty spot. 

“And do these friends happen to be the Avengers?”

You nod. “Yeah, they seem all heroic to everyone on the outside, but once you get to know them, they’re huge dorks. Me and Clint have been playing would you rather since I got back to DC. Stark has these robots that help him in the lab that he’s named. And Steve…” You pause to think of how to phrase it. “He’s like a giant child. The man has no idea how to use technology. I spent almost an entire day just showing him how to use the basics on his phone.”

Brooke hands you a pile of clothes. “Here’s your suit back, by the way. Hopefully it’s a little more knife and bullet resistant. So, you spend your time texting these guys?”

You unfold the shirt and hold it up to look at it. “Yeah, but I don’t know if you could call it texting with Stark. He hardly ever does the texting, he usually speaks to his A.I. and it types for him.”

Brooke pulls a magnifying glass over and, with a pair of tweezers in hand, makes small adjustments to the device she’s working on. “Sounds like you finally made some friends other than me. I’m glad! You need more friends so you don’t spend all day doing work.”

You roll your eyes and hop off of the table. “Speaking of which, I should head upstairs. There might be paperwork to do.”

“Whatever you do, if you start to nod off at all, I want you to get out of that office and get your ass home.”

You turn around and walk backwards to look at her as you say, “Yes, ma’am.” So of course you trip over something again.

This time, instead of landing on a table or on the floor, you land in someone's arms. 

“(Y/N) did you really fall agai–” She stops talking when she sees who caught you.

Steve helps you stand back up again and you turn to him. “Thanks for catching me there. I – really need to pay more attention to where I am walking.”

He looks at you with a smirk on his face. “Well, if we’re still doing that course on doors for me, maybe I can repay you with a course on how to walk?”

“Oooh, that was harsh.” You turn around and see Brooke still standing and staring. “Oh, right. Introductions! Steve, this is Brooke. Brooke, this is Steve.”

Steve walks over to her and holds out his hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, ma’am.”

Her eyes grow wide and she takes his hand, and then speaks incoherently.

You shake your head. “Don’t worry, she’ll find her voice soon. She gets starstruck very easily. I should tell you about the first time she met Coulson. She couldn’t speak for ten minutes.”

“It was not ten!” she says, then quieter, “It was three.”

You smile at her, and her eyes widen. “Ohh, you said that so I would start to talk again. Captain Rogers, it is a pleasure to meet you. May I ask what brings you down here?”

“I was getting my new suit and saw (Y/N) in here, thought I’d say hi. Good thing I did, or they’d be a floor pancake right now.”

You nod. “Okay, I guess I deserve that one. I need to go, there might be paperwork waiting at my desk with someone else's name on it, because I certainly haven’t been out in the field. I will see the two of you later.”

“Bye, (Y/N)!” says Brooke, with a little wave. “Goodbye, Captain Rogers.”

Steve walks out the lab with you, and when you part ways, you say, “I’ll text you later!”

“Bye,” he says with a nod, and you head for the elevator.


	37. You Swear You Don't Go Looking For Trouble

You start to fall back into a normal schedule again, even though after New York your life can be described as anything but normal. It wasn’t normal to walk through the streets and see graffiti of you on the walls, or people wearing shirts that you are on, or little kids running around in a costume that looks like your uniform pretending to set things on fire.

You sort of liked the more simple shirts, the one that simply say ‘Flare’ or something with your superhero name in it. It was still strange, but at least because of your fire, no one recognizes you if you walk around normally.

Unfortunately, even though it was known to the world that you lived in D.C., the crime didn’t stop or slow down at all.

Which leads you to today.

You’re stuck in standstill traffic on the way home from work, and you can just barely make out the red and blue lights of the police cars way in the distance. You pull your phone out to see if you can figure out what is happening that is blocking all the traffic.

It doesn’t take long for you to find out that there is a small section of the road up ahead that is cut off in all lanes. There was a crash involving a bus and a stolen car that had been in a car chase. When the criminal crashed into the bus, he immediately ran out of the car and into the bus, and is holding everyone hostage. The police have formed a barrier around the bus with their cars, and are trying to find a way to get everyone safely out of this situation.

You climb out of your car and shut the door, and walk off of the road and find a spot where no one can see you. You take off your clothes and throw them on the ground, exposing your uniform. With all the cars it will be tricky to try and avoid any explosions, but someone has to do something to help them.

You ignite your fire and shoot up into the sky, having worked on your newly found flying ability recently. Once you’re up high enough, you move your hands to take you towards the problem. You stop way in the sky above the bus, and no one has spotted you yet. 

Tilting down, you fly towards the roof of the bus, pulling up at the last second so you can land on the roof. You roll once you land, and then set your hands on the roof, melting through it.

You fall to the inside of the bus and stand, where you are greeted by the criminal holding a little girl hostage, with a gun aimed at her head. 

Whispers spread among the other passengers, saying, “It’s The Flare” or “Look who it is!” and other things talking about you.

“Stay back!” the man says. “Stay back or I’ll shoot!”

You hold your hands up next to your head. “Woah there, man, we don’t have to hurt anyone. Put the gun down and come with me, and I’ll see what I can do about getting your punishment lessened.”

He tightens his grip on the girl, and she starts to cry. “I don’t want to go to jail! You can’t make me!”

You purse your lips, racking your brain for what to say so no one gets hurt. “Shooting her won’t make a difference. I can still take you out, whether you shoot her or not.” You take a step forward.

“I said stay back!”

You take another step. “What will you do? The police have the bus surrounded. There’s no way you can escape this.”

“I–” he falters, and then points the gun at you. 

He doesn’t get to pull the trigger because you had been expecting this. Instead, you grab the gun and pull it from his hand, then toss the warped piece of metal aside as you grab the sleeve of his jacket and pull him away from the little girl, spinning him and twisting his arm behind him. The jacket starts to smoke where you’re holding it. 

The man cries out in pain as your hand burns through his clothes, and you push him hard at one of the seats. He hits his head on the corner, and it knocks him out. You walk up the aisle and pull the doors of the bus open, and then stand to the side as the passengers hurriedly flood out. The police then climb the stairs and nod at you as they pass, and put handcuffs on the man as he starts to wake.

You walk out of the bus and fly back into the sky, then go back to your clothes and put them back on. You climb back into your car and ready yourself to wait until the cops have cleared everything out so you can move again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone!   
> I know these in between chapters are kind of boring, but I promise we're going to get back into some action soon! (Hint: the next movie is CAWS ;) )


	38. Just 'Chill'

It’s finally the weekend and you have a day off to relax. Thor had been spotted in England, and because of that, you had been given a ton of work to do.

You’re back on your couch watching T.V. when your phone vibrates next to you.

_Ancient Liberty: Hello (Y/N), I was wondering if you had work today?_

_No, i take off weekends_

You wonder why he was asking.

_Ancient Liberty: I was wondering if you would like to meet up and just ‘chill’?_

_Omg steve_

_Ancient Liberty: What, did I use that word wrong? Clint was using it a lot, I thought I used it correctly._

_No, no, ur fine, you dont need the apostrophes tho_

_Ancient Liberty: I will remember that then._

_I’m free all day, had anything in mind?_

You turn the T.V. off so you don’t get into a show when Steve wants to meet.

_Ancient Liberty: Great : ) We could go to the Smithsonian?_

_You got 1 in mind?_

_Ancient Liberty: I have always liked art, you want to go to the art museum?_

_Yeah sure_

_Ancient Liberty: I can be there in 15, does that sound okay?_

_Works 4 me_

_Ancient Liberty: : )  
_  
Luckily you had changed earlier, so you only have to do a few things before you are ready to leave. You make sure you have your wallet and keys, as well as to leave any weapons behind. You may be a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, but the museum security always cracks down pretty tight. Besides, you had other ways to deal with people if something happens. And you’ll be with Steve. You’ll be fine.

You leave the apartment and wait outside for him, watching the traffic go by. Soon enough, you hear the distinct sound of a motorcycle, and you look down the street to see Steve riding it. He pulls off of the road and parks in front of you.

“Hey, (Y/N),” he says with a wave.

“Hey Steve. Nice bike.”

“Thanks!” he says, and then turns to toss you a helmet.

You catch it and flip it over, and then put it on. As you attach the straps, you ask, “Where’s yours? Afraid of messing up your hair?”

He shrugs. “Don’t really need one.”

“Well then, you can’t blame me if we crash and your hair gets permanently messed up.” You climb onto the bike behind him. You hold onto his sides as he starts the motorcycle, and the two of you drive through the city to the museum. 

When you reach the museum, you put the helmet back on the motorcycle and then follow Steve over to the building. 

“You know how to work the door?” you ask him as he reaches out to it.

He pulls it open and holds it for you. “That depends, do you know how to walk through it?”

“Touche.” You walk through the door and he follows in behind you.

The two of you spend hours in the art exhibit, walking around and looking at everything. You don’t know much about the art, but you think it looks nice, and you like seeing Steve’s face light up as he explains the history behind some of the famous works of art. It’s nice to see him happy. 

“So, how do you know all of this stuff?” you ask as you walk away from the last painting he had a big explanation for.

He shrugs. “Back when I was just a twig, art was the one thing I was good at. When I woke up, everything was unfamiliar. But art was still around. People still appreciate it. So, in trying to catch up on everything, anytime I felt overwhelmed, I’d switch history books and look at art history books instead.” He rubs the back of his neck. “That sounds really – nerdy, doesn’t it?”

You shrug. “I don’t mind. I think it’s cool that you know so much. I certainly didn’t know half of the things you’ve told me today, and I probably still wouldn’t know if you weren’t here.”

He smiles and your eyes drift over to the wall, where you see a poster for a new exhibit in the air and space museum. Steve sees your attention move elsewhere and looks at the poster as well. It’s for the Captain America exhibit. 

“Must be weird seeing that there’s an entire exhibit on your life, huh.”

When he doesn’t answer, you look at him, and can see it in his face. 

You sigh. “You’ve already been there, haven’t you.”

He shrugs. “Maybe I have. How would you feel if your life history was on display?” he asks, changing subjects a little.

You decide to roll with it. You roll your eyes. “Oh yeah, that would be a great exhibit.” You change your voice to mock the exhibit narrators. “(Y/N) was young when their parents died in a plane crash while on a mission. They then strove to be like their parents, to do good in the world. Then the idiot they are got turned into a living volcano after swallowing some vitamins.” You raise your eyebrows at Steve, and then, back in your normal voice, “Yeah. Real interesting.”

“Hey, don’t be so hard on yourself. I read in the paper what you did with that bus. If you hadn’t managed to stop the guy, who knows what would have happened to the people on that bus. And let’s not forget that you helped stop an alien invasion in New York, as well as some other things I'm sure I haven't heard about.”

“Okay, okay, I get it.”

You move away from the topic and go back to talking about the art until you have to leave. Steve takes you back to your apartment. 

As you get off of the motorcycle, Steve says, “Thanks for coming out with me today. I had fun.”

You smile at him. “Thanks for getting me out of my apartment today. I had fun too.”

He starts his motorcycle again and leaves you with a salute. You wave as he re enters the traffic, and then walk back up to your apartment to get some sleep.


	39. Training Tomfoolery

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had to add a new tag because of this chapter, so I hope you enjoy!

You spend the rest of your weekend sleeping or eating, trying to catch up on all the sleep you have missed recently. Once you finally get back to the office, you know something is up, because your office door is open, and you definitely closed it when you left.

You cautiously enter your office, and you sigh when you see what’s going on. “I should have guessed it was you.”

Clint is sitting in your desk chair, leaning back, with his feet up on your desk. In his hands is an arrow, and he’s spinning the tip of it.

“Who else would you expect?”

“What brings you to actually be in HQ for once?” you ask as you set your bag down.

“A little birdie told me you’ve been working really hard recently. You need a break. So, I’m here to offer you a break that will get you away from your desk but will still count as working.”

You raise your eyebrow in question. “And what is it that you are offering?”

“Come down to the gym with me. We can train some.”

You look at the stack of paperwork sitting in your tray. “I have work to do, Clint, I don’t have time.”

“Come on, it’ll be fun! Pass all these stupid papers off to someone else, like all the higher ups usually do, and tell them you’re going to go train. All agents have to train every once in a while, don’t they?”

You sigh. “At least let me check my email first.” You make a gesture for him to get out of the chair. 

He gets up from the chair and pulls the stack of paper off of your desk, then leaves the room as you sit down to log in on your computer. 

By the time you read through all of your emails, Clint returns with only the arrow in his hand. “Okay, I dished the paperwork out for you. It’s all gonna be finished now. Log off of that computer now or I will shoot an arrow through it so you can’t use it.”

You shut the computer off and stand up. "You know, even if you broke this computer, I could have just gone and used someone else’s.”

He sticks his tongue out at you in response. You follow him into the elevator and take it down to the gym.

“So, anything in particular you had in mind?”

He puts the arrow into a quiver and then slings it across his back, and then picks up the bow next to it. “Yeah, actually, I do.” He points across the room. “They just finished making this new obstacle course where you have to dodge through obstacles while shooting targets, I thought we could try it out and see who does better.”

“Okay, so are we going for speed or something else?”

“Both, I guess. There’s a point system and you get points for every target you hit, and then at the end your time can give you more points too.”

You nod. “Anyone tried it out yet?”

“Yep. A few agents. I’m hoping to beat the current 1st place holder.”

“Who is?”

“Maria Hill with 45000. She’s insanely accurate with a gun. Don’t get on her bad side.”

He leads you over to the start of the obstacle course. “You can go stand in that area up there, it gives you a full view of the course. And whatever you do, don’t press any buttons.”

You climb the ladder to the platform Clint pointed to as he gets ready to run through the course. You see the buttons he meant, all clearly labeled. It’s sabotage buttons. You’re definitely pressing them.

Clint hits the button to start the timer and starts running through the course, shooting everything he can see as he jumps over obstacles. You press a button just as he jumps over one of the obstacles, and the wall shoots up, sending him flying into the air. He falls back onto the ground and starts running again, saying, “Fuck you (Y/N)!”

“Sorry Clint, you’re not my type.”

An arrow just misses your head, and you stick your tongue back out in response. 

You continue to press the buttons to mess with Clint. When he finishes, he has a score of 38000.

He climbs into the box with a scowl across his face. “If you hadn’t made those foam blocks fall, I would have hit those targets and had enough points to win.” He punches your shoulder. “That’s for not listening to me.”

You rub your arm and say, “If that's all, I’ll take it.”

“Oh, trust me, that is not all,” he responds with an evil gleam in his eye. 

You gulp and then climb the ladder back down to the ground, ready to start your run. 

Concentrating, you bring your fire to the surface and hit the button to start. You start running, looking around for all of the targets and shooting fireballs at them. There’s a short wall in front of you, so you use your flames to boost yourself over it, which means when Clint hits the button to make it higher, it doesn’t throw you anywhere. You smile as you hear him curse loudly, but then trip over a block that just appeared and fall on your face. A whoop cuts through the air as you get off of the ground and shoot a few more targets. 

Even with Clint’s continuous sabotaging, when you reach the end, your score is 40000.

“Hah!” you say as Clint climbs down to join you. “I beat you!”

He sticks his tongue out. “You watched me first, you knew what was coming.”

“Uh huh, sure. You can blame it on that.”

He rolls his eyes. “Whatever. At least I got you away from the desk for a day.”

You look at your watch and see that it is almost time for you to leave work for the day.

“How did that much time pass already?”

“Are you kidding? It took forever to convince people to take your paperwork for the day, and somehow you spent that entire time going over emails. I don’t understand how any of you that work in the office get anything done on time.”

“Hey, don’t knock it till you try it. At least it’s better than being shot at all the time.”

“But at least I can shoot back. What are you going to do at a desk job, shoot angry emails back and forth?”

You shrug. “Sometimes.”

He shakes his head. “Your life is so boring, (Y/N). You’re a fucking superhero, and your life is boring. You need to get out more.”

The two of you walk out of the building together. Before you leave Clint so you can go back to your apartment, you say, “Maybe I do.”


	40. Elevator Altercation

You don’t hear the news until you get to your desk at work. Everyone is walking around in hushed, quiet tones. 

Fury is dead. Someone currently unknown shot him through the wall of Steve’s apartment late last night.

Alexander Pierce is taking over for now, and he wants to see you. So you ignore the paperwork on your desk and take the elevator up to his office now. 

You knock on his partially opened office door. He looks up from his desk. “(Y/N), come in. Have a seat.” You close the door behind you and sit in front of his desk.

“What did you need me here for, sir?”

He leans back in his chair. “I’m assuming you’ve heard that Fury was killed?”

You nod.

“Director Fury was one of the only things keeping the council from prohibiting your powers again. Now that he's gone, I am trying my best, but it is hard, especially when the council does not trust him.” He pushes a folder towards you. “I need you to fill this paperwork out, it may help me to convince the council to not try to build those braces again.”

You nod again and take the folder. “Understood.”

“Fill it out as soon as you can, and leave it in that bin at the end of the hallway. You can go.”

You sigh and leave his office. You wish you could say you were surprised, but – this is the same group of people who tried to nuke New York City after all. As you walk down the hall, you see Steve come around the corner. 

“Hey Steve,” you say as he gets closer, and the two of you stop in the middle of the hallway. “I heard what happened last night. I’m – sorry that had to happen to you. If you don’t want to stay in your apartment for a while, my couch is available.”

He smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “Thanks. I’ll think about it.” He points to the folder in your hands. “Is everything okay with you?”

You look down at it and then back up at him. “With Fury gone, I’m having issues with the World Security Council.” You shrug. “I guess we’ll see how this goes.”

He nods. “Good luck.” He starts back down the hall. 

You turn back around and say, “If you’re going to Pierce’s office, you have to push the door open.”

He looks back at you and rolls his eyes, but you think you see the smallest trace of a real smile across his face.

You finish walking down the hallway and sit in one of the chairs, deciding it would be easier to fill the paperwork out while you are here instead of coming back up. The amount of paper in the folder would scare any normal person, but this was normal for you, so you skim through and fill out what’s needed in a surprisingly short amount of time. 

You place the folder in the bin and then walk over to the elevator, leaning against the wall as you wait for it to arrive. Steve comes over and stands next to you to wait. You look at him and offer him a small smile. He returns it but he seems to be brooding, so you let him think and pull out your phone.  
 _  
Science Nerd: Hey, everything ok?_

_Yeah why_

_Science Nerd: Just some rumors floating around  
_  
The elevator doors open, so you and Steve step in.

“My office,” you tell the elevator and bury your nose back into your phone.  
 _  
What kind of rumors?_

_Science Nerd: Don’t know if I should say over text_

_Brooke what’s going on_

_Science Nerd: … I’ll meet you in your office ok  
_  
You look up from your phone concerned, and something feels … off. You see Steve glancing around the elevator at all the people it’s filled up within the past few minutes. You follow his eyes to see what he sees. Everyone has weapons, which is completely normal. What’s unusual is that most of them are resting their hands on the weapon, as if they are going to use it. The elevator door closes again.

Steve spares a glance at you and then looks forward. “Before we get started, does anyone want to get out?”

There’s silence for a few seconds but then everyone turns around, rushing at Steve and you. Steve gets pushed towards one of the walls as you get pushed towards the glass on the other side of the elevator. 

Your wrists are being held by two men vastly stronger than you, but you struggle against them anyways. Everyone else seems to be focused on Steve, who is currently fighting back.

Your hands flicker and then the rest of you ignites, fire lighting up the elevator. Unfortunately, it doesn’t do anything against the men, who are wearing thick, fireproof gloves. You grit your teeth and swing your knee up as hard as you can, and it connects right in between one of the guy's legs. His hands leave your arm as he falls to the ground in pain, and you use your now free hand to punch the other guy as hard as you can on the side of his head.

The man goes down, and you kick the other man in the head to knock him out. There’s one guy left standing, and he’s currently attacking Steve with a cattle prod. Steve is wincing in pain, so you kick at his leg, making him falter and giving Steve the chance to knock him out. 

“It kind of feels personal,” Steve says over the man. He then steps on his shield to pick it up, and hits the cuff on his arm with it, breaking the cuff off. 

Steve walks over to the elevator door and presses the button to start it again, and you let your fire start to die out. As soon as the doors open, the two of you see about a dozen people standing there with guns. You freeze, and in a split second decision Steve swings his shield around and cuts the cable to the elevator. As it suddenly drops, you find yourself backed into the corner with your flames completely back again because of the shock.

When the emergency brakes finally stop the elevator, you're between floors. 

“Warn me next time you do that please,” you say as Steve starts to open the doors. There are more people there, so he closes the door. He then moves to the window and looks down.

“Great. How are we getting out of here?”

Steve tilts his head and walks to the other side of the elevator. He then lifts his shield and runs at the window, jumping out of it. It shocks you so much it takes you a second before you fly out of the hole in the window and down to the ground where he landed. You let your flames go away and help him up. 

“You are such an idiot.” You start to run to the garage with him.

“Noted.”

The garage is going into lockdown, so you leave your car and instead set yourself on fire again and fly out behind Steve on his motorcycle. A quinjet tries to block your passage on the bridge. 

You fly up to the quinjet and throw a fireball at one of its engines, and Steve’s shield hits the other one. He jumps up onto the jet and pulls his shield out, throwing it again to hit the tail of the jet, catches it, and flips off onto the ground. You land next to him and extinguish your flames. The two of you spare a glance between each other and then start to run as the quinjet crashes behind you.


	41. On The Run

The two of you run into the city, and Steve disappeared a few minutes ago. He reappears in a different outfit and offers you clothes. 

“Where did you get these?” you ask as you take the clothes from him.

“I ran back to my apartment real quick before they could get there. So, the clothes may be too big for you.”

You hold the shirt up in front of you. “Maybe?” It looks two or three sizes too big. “I’ll stick to my own pants, thanks. But I’ll at least take the hoodie and the hat.” You put the two on, and hope it does enough to disguise yourself so no one will recognize you.

Steve starts to walk further into the city. “Where are we headed?”

“The hospital. I need to get something from there.”

The two of you manage to sneak in past the front desk without anyone catching you. Steve walks over to a vending machine and stands in front of it, looking. You turn around to make sure no one had followed you. Once you’re sure that you and Steve made it through without a tail, you turn back around, only to see Steve in one of the nearby rooms, pressing Natasha against the wall. You hurry into the room with them. 

“I know who killed Fury,” Natasha says, and Steve looks at her. ‘Most of the intelligence community doesn’t believe he exists but the ones that do call him the Winter Soldier. He’s credited with over two dozen assassinations in the last fifty years.” 

“So he's a ghost story,” says Steve.

Natasha looks you in the eyes. You roll yours back at her and walk out of the room. You keep watch outside the door, and soon, Steve is walking out of it with Natasha. You lock eyes with Steve questioningly, and he nods.

“Where are we going?” Steve asks Natasha as she leads you out of the hospital. 

“The mall.”

“Why do we need to go to the mall?” you ask. You are currently on the run, after all.

She turns around and tosses you an earpiece. “We need someplace to decode this drive. We can go to a computer store since all of our apartments are most likely under watch right now. Steve and I will go into the store; I need you to stay out in the mall and keep watch.”

You nod. “Should I be looking for agents or undercover spies?”

“The device has a homing beacon on it, so they’ll be sending normal agents once we boot it up to try and get us before we leave. Keeping an eye out for anyone undercover never hurts though.”

The closest mall is only a few blocks away, so it’s not long before you guys are splitting up. Steve and Natasha enter the computer store together, and you walk around on the same floor as them. After a while, you see agents starting to appear. You take the escalator up a floor and watch the door to the store. 

Steve and Natasha exit the store, so you call out to them. “Standard tag team. Two behind, two across, two going straight at you.”

“Get outside, (Y/N). We’ll meet you there.”

You turn away and manage to avoid getting caught by the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents searching the mall. When you get outside, you spot Steve and Natasha walking together down the street. You follow behind them, catching up quickly. 

“Where to now?”

Natasha looks over her shoulder. “New Jersey. We need a car. Don’t suppose you have one?”

“My car’s in the Triskelion.”

“So that’s a no, then.”

“They’d probably be able to track the plates anyways, and a vehicle without plates would cause too much suspicion.”

Steve looks at a truck across the street. “I’ve got us a ride.”


	42. Hydra?

You and Natasha keep watch as Steve breaks into the car, hot-wiring it. Steve and Natasha claim the front, so you take the back. With Steve driving, it doesn’t take long for you to close your eyes to get a little bit of sleep. 

“(Y/N), wake up.”

You slowly open your eyes to find Steves hand on your shoulder, shaking you gently. You had arrived at your destination. It was an old army training camp, so old that Steve had trained there. 

Getting out of the truck, you blink the sleep out of your eyes and follow Steve into the camp. Natasha was already in there, looking. 

Steve spots a bunker that’s out of place and walks over to it, using his shield to break the lock. It’s an old S.H.I.E.L.D. office, possibly the first one. You split apart from the other two, looking for anything important.

Steve speaks up from the other side of the room, drawing you towards him. “If you’re already working in a secret office;” Steve stops to push apart two metal shelving units. When the screeching stops, he finishes with, “Why do you need to hide the elevator?”

Sure enough, moving the shelves opened a hallway with an elevator at the end. Natasha uses a device to find the passcode and, after riding the elevator down, the three of you step into another dark room. The lights turn on as you walk further into the room, revealing computers so old you’ve never seen them in person before. Natasha sees a newer piece of technology on the table and puts the drive into the machine, starting it up.

You sneeze. Steve jumps. “Sorry, there’s a lot of dust in here.”

The computer finishes booting up. A camera above it searches the group. “Rogers, Steven, born 1918. (Y/LN), (Y/N), born (Y/BY). Romanoff, Natalia Alianovna, born 1984.”

"This is – weird. It’s a computer, how does it know all of this?"

The computer ignores you after the first time it spoke. It talks to Steve and Natasha about how he used to be a person, and then his brain was saved in the computer. He used to be Hydra, and when recruited to S.H.I.E.L.D., started to grow Hydra again. Now they were taking over S.H.I.E.L.D. to take over the world.

“Remember what we’re here for guys,” you say after Steve gets so frustrated he punches the computer screen.

What’s on this drive?” Steve demands.

“The answer to your question is fascinating. Unfortunately, you shall be too dead to hear it.”

The elevator doors close suddenly, trapping you. Natasha looks at her phone and sees a missile coming straight for you. 

Steve throws one of the grates in the floor off to the side and motions for you and Natasha to get in. Natasha jumps in first, followed by you and then Steve right as the missile hits. Steve holds his shield above your heads, and he shields the rest of you with his body. 

As the fire from the explosion spreads out, you do your best to keep it from hitting Steve or Natasha, until you can’t see it anymore due to the debris covering you. 

After the sounds of falling debris finishes, Steve pushes up with his shield, moving the debris off of you. Once you can see outside again, you start coughing, and Steve helps you up. He then picks an unconscious Natasha off of the ground as you carefully walk out of the pile of debris you were in. Steve follows you with Natasha in his arms, and then you hear the quinjets coming, so you turn to look at them. 

You motion to Steve to follow you and you quickly pick your way out of the rest of the debris, pulling any fires out of your path, with Steve following close behind.


	43. EX0-7 Falcon

“Are you sure about this?” you ask Steve. You’ve made it back in D.C. and are standing in someone’s backyard. 

“Yes,” he answers and knocks on the door. In a few seconds, it slides open. “I’m sorry to do this, Sam. We need a place to law low.”

Natasha adds, “Everyone we know is trying to kill us.”

Sam looks between the three of you and says, “Not everyone.” He steps aside and lets the three of you enter.

You get the bathroom first and discard Steve’s oversized sweatshirt, now covered in dirt and ashes. You use the sink to wash your face off, and then leave the bathroom to let the next person in. You decide to join Sam in the kitchen. 

He’s at the stove making breakfast and looks over his shoulder when he hears you sit down. 

“Can I ask you a question?” he asks. “I don’t mean to be rude.”

“Go ahead. You are letting us stay here, after all.”

He gestures toward the bathroom. “We’ve got Steve and Natasha. Hard not to know who they are. You seem to be dressed like The Flare, so I’m assuming that’s you?”

You nod.

“Well, I know your superhero name, but not your real name. Care to share it?”

“I’m (Y/N).”

“Nice to meet you, (Y/N). Would you like something to drink? Help yourself to what’s in the fridge.”

“It’s good to meet you too, Sam.” You get up and pull some juice out of the fridge, pouring it into a glass.

“So, you’ve got the freaky fire powers, huh? How’d you get something like that?”

“Freak accident. Took some vitamins. Fish oil, to be exact. Haven’t had any vitamins since; I’m scared something else could happen.”

Sam nods. “Makes sense you would want to stay away from them. And it just – gave you the powers?”

“Well, first it paralyzed me and trapped me in a black husk, but yes, when I woke up in the hospital bed I just – had them.”

A look of concern dances across Sam’s face. “Damn. I’ll stay away from fish oil, then.”

Sam finishes breakfast and sets a plate in front of you. “I’ll go get the other two; I’ll be right back.”

Steve and Natasha follow Sam back in, and he gives them both plates of food and then brings one of his own over. You all sit in silence eating, some of you still trying to recover from the New Jersey events.

When everyone finishes, you start to pile everyone's plates together. 

“What are you doing?” Sam asks. “This is my house, and you are all my superhero guests, I should be cleaning.”

You smile at him. “Don’t worry about it. It’s the least I can do for letting us use all of your stuff. I’ll go wash them, and I’ll be right back.” Picking the plates up, you go into the kitchen and start to wash the dishes. You can hear a conversation starting at the table, but you can’t make out any words. It’s okay though, you’ve never been in this situation so if they are planning out what to do now, you’ll just follow along.

You finish the dishes and walk back in the room as Sam throws a file onto the table. “What’s going on in here?” you ask.

“We were just trying to figure out what to do from here. Sam offered to help,” Steve answers as Natasha flips through the folder. “It’s just a matter of getting him what he needs.”

“Let me guess; it’s locked up somewhere fancy?”

Sam nods.

You shrug. “Sounds easy enough. I’m sure Natasha’s managed to get through worse. Now, when do we leave?”


	44. Who The Hell Is Bucky?

You are put in charge of the car.

Yay, you get the most boring job in the world. Having to sit in a car and keep it running so that everyone can get out quickly. 

Getting the wings for Sam was so quick it seemed impossible for Natasha to have actually gotten them, but she did.

Then it was time to find Sitwell. He knew information about whatever Zola had been hiding from you, so you needed to find a way to get him. Steve and Natasha get out of the car at a building nearby, and then you take Sam to the cafe. And wait. 

Sam finally catches Sitwell as he’s leaving the restaurant, but he won’t say a word. You take the two of them over to the building Steve and Natasha are waiting in. Sam drags Sitwell out of the car, and you watch them disappear into the building.

Then you wait. Again. Who knew the life of a superhero could be so boring.

When everyone comes back out of the building, Sam comes around to the driver's door. “Hey, hop on out. I’m gonna drive. We might be passing cameras, and they aren’t currently scanning any cameras for my face.”

“Okay.” Steve takes the passenger side, so you end up going in behind Steve, with Natasha in the middle and Sitwell on the other end.

“So, what’s up?” you ask, so you know what’s going on.

“Zola’s algorithm somehow knows how to predict enemies of Hydra, and it's on the Insight Helicarriers. They’re going to kill everyone who poses as a threat,” Natasha answers.

You nod and look out the window as Natasha sticks her head up front to ask Steve and Sam a question. Sitwell freaks over it, thinking that he’s going to be killed if anyone sees him.

There’s a noise on the roof of the car, and then you jump in your seat as the window Sitwell is sitting next to shatters. A metal arm reaches in and pulls him out, throwing him into oncoming traffic. He gets hit by a truck.

Before you can react, Natasha tries to move you out of the way, but the arm comes crashing in your window mere seconds later, and you find yourself hurling through the air, off over the bridge of the highway.

Your fire lights up as you fall and you hold your hands down in front of you. You stop falling mere inches from the ground. Raising yourself so you can stand again, you quickly look up at the bridge so you can see what's going on. Sitwell must have had a tracker or something, how else would all of these men have found you?

There’s a car full of Hydra up on the bridge with everyone else, so you quickly fly back up and land on the windshield of the car, and it cracks under the force. You punch the glass, and it completely shatters; the driver starts swerving as glass rains down on him. The car quickly empties, and you turn around to get off only to see that the man with the metal arm has somehow knocked both Steve and Natasha off of the bridge. You watch as he fires a grenade in your direction, and then immediately turns around to get a different weapon.

The grenade explodes, and you take the fire from it, using the extra fire to boost yourself over to the man before he could realize it didn’t hurt you. 

You deliver a kick to the back of his head and then jump down to the underpass to find Steve and help him. He’s currently trying to take out the other Hydra agents after him, so you help, taking some of the gunmen out from behind before they notice you. Sam helps as well, he’s still on the bridge and found a gun. Once they have been taken care of, you and Steve go running down the street, towards where you think Natasha is. 

A gunshot goes off, and you barely see Natasha as she falls. You go running towards her as Steve goes running in the other direction, back after the man with the metal arm. You let your fire die as you crouch in front of her, seeing she’s bleeding from a wound to her shoulder.

“You want help?” you ask, knowing you have to be careful with her.

She nods, so you extend your arm so she can use it to stand. She pulls you over to the grenade launcher on the ground and picks it up, aiming it down the street. You follow her aim and look to see Steve throwing the man over his shoulder. His mask falls off, and Steve stops.

“Bucky?” you hear him say, and Natasha leans against you for more support.

“Who the hell is Bucky?” the man responds, and nearly shoots Steve, but Natasha shoots the grenade at him, and he has to dodge. He disappears, but before any of you can try to go after him, the S.T.R.I.K.E. team pulls in and jumps out of their cars.

“On your knees!” they scream, and you’re about to put up a fight, but you watch Steve go down, so you grit your teeth and go down too, helping Natasha down with you. You put your hands up, and they cuff you, then push you, Steve, Sam, and Natasha into one of their trucks along with two of their men.


	45. Lay Low

“It was him,” says Steve, “He looked right at me like he didn’t even know me.”

You, Natasha, Sam, and Steve are all sitting in the back of the truck with two Hydra agents.

“Are you sure?” You ask, “It was over seventy years ago.”

“His unit was captured, and he was experimented on, whatever they did to him must have helped him survive the fall. They must have found him and…”

“None of that’s your fault, Steve,” Natasha says from the other side of the truck, leaning against the wall, about to pass out.

Sam looks at you. “Any way you can stop the bleeding?”

You roll your eyes. “Sure, let me just set myself on fire again. Best case scenario, I melt the cuffs and then get shot by those two. Worst case, I blow the car up.”

“Okay, okay.” He turns to the Hydra agents. “We need to put pressure on her wound or she’s gonna bleed out here in the truck.”

One of the agents threatens Sam with an electric rod and he goes quiet, but suddenly they attack the other agent with it, knocking them out. Then they take their helmet off, and it is revealed that it is Maria Hill. 

She helps the four of you out of the truck by cutting a hole in the floor, and then takes you to another truck, hidden by the trees. She drives as you and Sam try to stop Natasha’s shoulder from bleeding. Once you park, Steve helps you out of the car while Sam helps Natasha. Hill leads the four of you into the hidden tunnel that must be where everyone who’s not Hydra has been hiding. 

“We need a medic,” Hill calls out into the hall, and someone comes running.

“Give her to me,” someone says as they get close.

“She’ll want to see him first.”

The four of you look over at Hill confused, but she leads you down another hallway, and when you stop, it answers all of your questions.

“About damn time,” Fury says from on a hospital bed.

Everyone crowds into the small room and a doctor comes over to put pressure on Natasha’s bullet wound as Fury says a long list of all of his injuries. 

“So… Hydra,” you say, because the clock is ticking on the helicarrier launches.

“Yeah, about that,” starts Fury. “We need to reprogram the helicarriers onboard weapons if we are going to stop this purge.”

Hill pulls a case off of a table and opens it, revealing three different computer chips. “If we replace the weapons array card with these, we can reprogram the guns to fire where we want. We have to replace all three though because if even one of those helicarriers is still active, a lot of people will die.”

“And maybe, when this all blows over, we can see what we can still salvage –” Fury starts, but Steve cuts him off.

“No. Hydra has been growing right under all of our noses and no one noticed. S.H.I.E.L.D.’s been compromised, you said so your self. It all goes.”

Fury stares at him for a few seconds before Hill says, “He’s right.”

Fury looks to Natasha, who nods, and then to Sam, who says, “Don’t look at me, I do whatever he does, but slower.”

He turns his eyes to you then, and you say, “Yeah. We’re not going to be able to salvage anything.”

Fury leans back and looks to Steve again. “Looks like you're in charge here, Captain.”

Steve nods and then starts to form a plan for you to be able to take down Hydra. You listen intently, making sure to know exactly what you should be doing, and can’t help but notice Steve doesn't mention anything about the Winter Soldier. When he’s done, he breaks so that everyone can get ready, and so Natasha can get her wound cleaned up.

Sam starts to help the doctors with Natasha, and the two of you notice Steve sneaks out of the room by himself. You look to Sam, who looks back at you.

“Go after him. I’ll help here. I have a feeling he’s going to do something reckless.”

You nod to Sam and then slip out of the room, going after Steve.


	46. Infiltrating S.H.I - Hydra

You find him a few minutes later, standing on the bridge outside, looking off into the distance. You walk over to him but don’t get too close, wanting to make sure you don’t upset him if he wants to be alone.

“You know he’s going to be there, right?” you say, knowing you don’t have to say who for Steve to know who you’re talking about. 

Steve looks over to you and then looks back out over the trees, nodding. You look out over the bridge as well. 

“You know he doesn’t remember you. You could get hurt if you don’t hurt him first.”

Steve shakes his head. “No, we don’t know that he doesn’t remember me. He hesitated on the bridge, which means there was something there.”

You nod. “So you’re going to try to do anything you can to get him to remember. I figured as much, was just trying to get you to see it might not be possible. Any way I can help?”

Steve looks over at you, shocked, and you shrug.

“I hate to see you like this. So tense, and not fully here. I know that if it were Brooke that had somehow been brainwashed, I’d be trying to do anything to get her back.” You purse your lips in thought. “I hope she’s doing okay. And, you know, that she’s not Hydra. She doesn’t seem like the Hydra type.”

Steve’s lip twitches up a small amount, as if he wants to smile but can’t. “Just let me know if you find him. Also, maybe try and just – knock him out? Then we could detain him and try to flush whatever they did to him out.”

You nod. “Okay. You going to go like that?”

Steve shakes his head. “If you’re going to fight a battle, you’ve gotta wear a uniform.”

You follow him back inside to get Sam and Hill; Natasha has other means of getting to the Triskelion. He then leads the three of you to the Air and Space Museum. He sneaks in and comes back not long after in his old uniform. 

“Did you just steal that from the exhibit?” you ask, and Steve shakes his head, leading the three of you back to the helicopter. 

“It’s not stealing if it was mine in the first place.”

Hill starts the helicopter up and flies it over to the Triskelion, where you can see people running around, getting ready to launch the helicarriers. Hill lands the helicopter on the roof and kicks one of the satellite dishes as the rest of you get out. You go and wait at the roof access door, Sam and Hill taking out their guns and standing on either side of Steve. A S.H.I.E.L.D. technician opens the door and steps back, startled and wide-eyed.

“Excuse us,” Steve says, and the technician holds his hands up in surrender and steps aside. 

Steve then leads you into the office, where you, Sam, and Hill make sure none of the other technicians in the room are going to cause trouble. Steve takes over the microphone as you set it up to broadcast throughout the entire Triskelion. You nod to him when it’s ready, and point to the button he needs to hold. 

He clears his throat and then presses the button. “Attention all S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, this is Steve Rogers. You’ve heard a lot about me over the last few days. Some of you were even ordered to hunt me down. But I think it’s time you know the truth. S.H.I.E.L.D. is not what we thought it was. It’s been taken over by Hydra. Alexander Pierce is their leader. The S.T.R.I.K.E. and Insight crew are Hydra as well. I don’t know how many more, but I know they’re in the building. They could be standing right next to you. They almost have what they want. Absolute control. They shot Nick Fury. And it won’t end there. If you launch those helicarriers today, Hydra will be able to kill anyone that stands in their way. Unless we stop them. I know I’m asking a lot. But the price of freedom is high. It always has been. And it’s a price I’m willing to pay. And if I’m the only one, then so be it. But I’m willing to bet I’m not.”

Sam looks over at him when he finishes the speech and lets go of the button. “Damn. Did you write that down first, or did you just make it up?”

Steve smiles faintly and shakes his head. Hill takes over the computer and nods.

“I’ve got it from here. You three go now, I have a feeling now that Hydra’s been outed they will put up more of a fight now.”

Steve motions to you and Sam to follow him and he leads you back down to the ground, down to where the helicarriers are starting to launch.


	47. He The Hell Is Bucky

Sam extends his wings and flies up to the highest helicarrier. Steve runs off the ledge and jumps onto the one still starting its engines. That leaves you with the third one. It’s level with the ground already, so you easily run and jump over the gap onto the helicarrier. Since you had been on one before, you know the basic layout of where you need to go and start for the door. 

Unfortunately, almost the entire helicarrier crew is on deck, blocking the door so that you can’t get there very easily. You hide behind a pallet of boxes as they start to shoot at you, and you roll your eyes. You look down at your hands and watch as you ignite. You toss a fireball behind you as a distraction and run around the edge of the boxes, rushing towards a group of the soldiers. 

You jump up in the air and land in the middle of the group, punching the ground and sending a wave of fire out in all directions. It catches the soldiers closest to you unawares, and they fall, burnt, but other’s saw it coming, so they were able to easily jump over it. You duck as a group that was unaffected starts to shoot at you, so you quickly take cover behind some more boxes. 

They continue to shoot, wasting their ammo since they can’t even see you to be able to hit you. You roll your eyes at their stupidity and sneak around the other side of the boxes, managing to come out behind a soldier with his back to you. You grab him from behind and restrain him, hitting his head against the metal shipping container next to you, knocking him out.

The fight goes by quicker than you were expecting as you take out large groups with fire and then sneak around taking out individuals as everyone else is distracted by trying to shoot at you where you were hiding last. Finally, the deck is clear, and you run over to the door to get inside.

Right as you grab the handle, a shot rings out, and you quickly move away, the bullet grazing your shoulder. You wince and bring your hand up to cover the wound, the fire instantly cauterizing it as you turn around to see your attacker. You duck quickly again as the Winter Soldier – Bucky, Steve had called him – shoots at you again. 

He stalks close as you duck behind some more boxes, getting far from the door again.

“Alpha lock,” Steve calls out through the comms, but you ignore it as you hide from Bucky. Suddenly he jumps on top of the boxes you were hiding behind and jumps down on top of you, holding a knife. You quickly hold your hands up and catch the knife as his body weight knocks you onto the ground. The knife slices through your hand as Bucky turns it and pulls it away, and you realize that it is ceramic, so it didn’t melt.

You close your fist to cauterize the knife slash and then kick Bucky off of you right as he starts to bring the knife down to stab you again. The knife falls from his hand and shatters against the ground, and you smile for a brief second before he pulls another knife out. Realizing you can’t run, you attack him full force, trying your best to just knock him out and have Steve pick him up or something.

Steve calls out through the comms again, “(Y/N), status?”

“Uhh, I could use a little help here!” You yell, trying to hold back Bucky’s arm from stabbing you with another knife, the metal not melting as you hold it because your fire is growing weak. “I’ve got a bit of a Winter Soldier problem!”

Bucky pulls out of your grip and you run away this time, letting your fire go so you can conserve it for when you need it. You hide behind some boxes as Sam, who is carrying Steve, appears in your line of sight, not that far from you.

Taking the computer card out of your pocket, you run over towards Steve and Sam. “Steve, catch!” You yell, and you throw it to him. “Go put it in; we’ll keep him distracted!”

Steve turns to run for the door but Bucky was waiting for him, charging out from behind one of the boxes and running straight into Steve, pushing him off of the helicarrier.

“Steve!” you call as Sam starts to shoot at Bucky. You lean over the railing to see if you can spot Steve. Somehow, he’s still on the helicarrier.

“I’m okay, I can get in from down here,” Steve says through the comms, offering you a small salute. You nod to him and turn back around just in time to see Bucky had ripped Sam’s wing off and is throwing him over the boat.

You run to try and stop Bucky from throwing Sam, but you make it a second too late; Sam is over the railing already by the time you knock Bucky over.

Bucky wrestles with you on the ground for a few seconds as you hear Sam say, “Cap, I’m grounded.”

Bucky overpowers you with his arm and quickly slams your head onto the railing, dazing you, before picking you up and throwing you over too.

You spin around in the air a few times before you come to your senses to ignite yourself again. It only lasts for a brief moment though, before you start to fall again.

“Steve!” you yell, “He threw me off, he’s coming for you.”

“Are you okay?” Steve asks, concern lacing his voice.

Your fire activates again and you angle yourself to be able to drop over the Potomac. “Yeah, I don’t have enough juice left to fly though. I have enough to slow my decent and drop me into the river, but I won’t be able to get back up.”

“It’s okay; I can handle this on my own. Stay safe.”

“You too.” Your fire sputters out again, and you fall faster. It does this a few more times before you fall the rest of the way to the ground, with the Potomac breaking your fall. Swimming back to the surface, you check your comms, but the water damaged them.

You sigh and swim towards the closest shore, trying to get out as the helicarriers start to fall around you as they destroy each other. Climbing onto the rocks, you stand bent over to catch your breath, turning around to watch the rest of the helicarriers fall into the Potomac.


	48. Where's Steve?

As you walk down the embankment of the river towards what’s left of the Triskelion, you run into some S.H.I.E.L.D. agents and take one of their radios, tuning it to find the frequency your comms had been on.

“Anyone, eyes on (Y/N)?” Maria says through the radio, and you know you found the right one.

“I’m on the edge of the river after falling in. The water damaged my comms, so I stole a radio off of an agent. Anyone else unaccounted for?”

“Well, we still can’t find Steve,” Natasha says, and you see a helicopter flying overhead.

“What do you mean, you can’t find Steve? Wasn’t he on one of the helicarriers?” you yell into the radio over the sound of the helicopter.

“He said to start before he got clear, but we didn’t know where to find him to save him.”

You scan over the wreckage of the helicarriers before saying, “He probably fell or jumped into the river. Anyone else on the ground, or should I take this one?”

“We’re all in the helicopter, and Hill is still in the building,” answers Fury. “Here, take this.”

Something small drops from the helicopter onto the ground next to you, so you go to pick it up.

“It’s waterproof,” Fury says, and you realize it’s an earpiece.

You look up at the helicopter and nod, putting it in your ear. “I’ll see if I can find anything, do you want to do a sweep from above too?”

“We’ll go back and get a closer look at the helicarriers, keep us updated,” Natasha answers, and the helicopter turns away. 

You look out over the river and roll your shoulders before running back into the water, the cold current flowing slowly past you. “Good news is the current isn’t that strong,” you say as you wade out further into the river until you need to swim. “Bad news is that if Steve was unconscious for some reason if he fell, the current most likely took him with it.”

“Keep looking,” Sam remarks from the helicopter, “You never know with the way Steve is.”

You start to swim when your feet can’t touch the ground anymore and try to look through the murky water to see if you can find anything that might point you to where Steve is. A glint of metal reflecting the sun catches your attention under the water, so you take a breath and swim down to it. It turns out to be Steve’s shield – a kick to the debris on top of it and it comes loose, so you swim with it back up to the surface. 

“I found his shield!” you say as you breach the surface, gasping for breath. “It was at the bottom of the river.”

“Was Steve with it?” Natasha asks, and you see the helicopter turning towards you.

“No, just some debris. But if the shield was here, he had to have been nearby.” Something far down the river on the shoreline catches your eye, glinting in the sunlight for a few seconds before moving and then disappearing altogether. “I want to check something out, will you guys look around here?”

“Sure,” comes the response from Natasha, and you dive back under the water to swim in the direction of the glint you had seen. You are swimming with the current so it isn’t as hard of a swim as you were expecting it to be, but the place is still pretty far from where you had been, You must have been extremely lucky to have seen the glint when you did.

As you get closer, you notice that there’s a body laying out on the shore. It’s too far away to tell for sure if it’s Steve or not, so you don’t say anything and dive back under the water to swim closer. You can’t make out who it is until you’re nearly at the beach, and at that point, you say, “He’s here!”

You crawl up in the stones next to him, ignoring the small rocks digging into your knees through the fabric of your pants. You immediately put your ear to his chest to listen for a heartbeat.

“Where are you? We can’t find you.” Sam says, so you muster up the energy to make a fireball and throw it straight up as high as you can. “Gotcha,” he says, and the distant helicopter turns in your direction.

“Send for an ambulance,” you say as you look Steve over. “He has a heartbeat, he’s breathing, but he’s got at least one bullet wound, and his face looks like a smashed tomato.” You put your hands on his stomach where you can see the blood soaking his uniform to try and stop it as you wait for someone to get to you. You watch as the helicopter re-routes and you hear the sound of sirens before the ambulance finally pulls up close to you. Helping the EMT's put Steve on a stretcher and carrying him into the ambulance, you get in with him before they close the doors and the ambulance starts its race to the hospital.


	49. Squawk

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I've been updating really late guys. I actually have to take the updates Monday's part away, I can't keep myself to a schedule anymore.  
> I'm not abandoning this, I promise, but this semester has a lot more work than any previous semesters, and this is the last chapter I have written, so I don't know when I'll be able to update. I'll try my best to still do weekly!  
> By the way, this fic will go up through Endgame. So it'll end sometime after Endgame so I can wrap things up, which is another reason I haven't been writing as much of this - I don't know how it's going to end. If, for some horrible reason, Steve dies in Endgame, I will not be killing him, this will become a fix-it fic, so it'll end on a happy note :)  
> Thanks for understanding!

The doctors don’t let you into the room with Steve, which is understandable being as you aren’t his family. Instead, they usher you into a room with Sam and Natasha, and they look over the three of you. You try and protest, saying you’re fine, but they still look at the knife slash on your hand and the bullet wound on your shoulder. They put ointment on them and wrap them to make sure that they don’t get infected. 

Natasha leaves first, being the one in the least amount of danger. Sam goes next as the doctors check you out for a concussion since you had been slammed into a railing. They finally let you go, saying you have a very minor concussion and shouldn’t be driving for a week. That’s okay with you though; you don’t think you’ll be going anywhere. 

Sitting in the waiting room with only the standard hospital magazines is boring, and you nearly fall asleep in the chair before someone finally comes out and says Steve is in a stable condition and you can see him now.

You enter the room and look around, the sound of the heart monitor echoing loudly in the otherwise quiet room. Steve is hooked up to all sorts of monitors and is still unconscious. You see someone has placed his shield at the foot of his bed and shake your head at it, finally moving into the room and sitting down in one of the chairs next to the bed.

A few minutes later, Sam walks in with a big bag in his hands. “I had a feeling I’d find you here,” he says, and he takes the seat next to you before starting to empty the bag. “Here, I thought you might need to charge your phone.”

“Thanks,” you say, taking the cable from him and plugging your cracked phone into the wall. 

Sam pulls some other things out of the bag too, including an I-pod and a speaker for it. “One of the first things I told Steve was some music he needed to listen to. You don’t mind if I put some on, do you?”

You shake your head. “No, go ahead.” He sets it up as you watch your phone power on, and the flood of messages that comes in with it. You skim through a handful of them, not needing to read them all.  
 _  
Science Nerd: OMG did u and Steve really just jump out of the elevator??_

_Science Nerd: Wait now we’re hunting u?_

_Science Nerd: Where r u? Hope ur ok :(_

_Science Nerd: Okay Hydra’s back? Please, I see you on the helicarrier, let me know when you get this_

_Science Nerd: (Y/N)???_

_Sorry my phone was dead and I couldn’t exactly message you while on the run  
_  
You don’t even get to close the app before she responds.   
_  
Science Nerd: OMG I’m so glad ur safe!!!! Where r u I want 2 see u_

_The hospital downtown, room 253  
_  
“Someone worried about you?” Sam asks as he sits back down next to you.

You look up at him and nod. “My friend. She was a S.H.I.E.L.D. scientist. Glad to hear she wasn’t Hydra. She’s on her way over now, most likely.”

Sam nods too. “Yeah, my mom called me after seeing me on TV. Yelled at me for not telling her, then told me she’s just glad I’m safe.” He shrugs. “Good to know there are people that still care about you sometimes, you know?”

“Yeah.” You look back over at Steve, watching his chest rise and fall with the slow movements of his breathing.

“So, what’s up between you two?” Sam asks, gesturing to you and Steve.

“Us? Nothing. We’re just friends. Met as we were tracking down Loki, accidentally insulted him.” You shrug. “Somehow became friends.”

Sam quirks an eyebrow at that but doesn’t say anything. “Well, with how much we’ve all been through this week, I’d say it would be hard for us not to be friends.” You nod again, and Sam pulls his phone out and hands it over to you. “Here, put your number in. I have a feeling that if we’re both going to be hanging around this idiot, we might need help.”

Laughing, you put your number in his phone and he does the same on your phone, and you save it under Squawk. Then, Brooke comes bursting through the door.

“(Y/N)!” she says as she spots you in the corner, and you smile as she rushes over to hug you.

“Ow, Brooke, watch the shoulder!”

She pulls away and smiles sheepishly. “Sorry, I didn’t see that! I’m so glad you’re okay, what happened?”

You glance at Steve and gesture for the two of you to get out of the room. “I’ll be right back,” you tell Sam, and he nods. 

Out in the hallway, you tell Brooke everything, from going on the run with Steve to finding out about Hyrda to the helicarrier fight. You leave out Fury though, just in case he didn’t want her to know.

“You said that you were able to cauterize the wound? But didn’t you bleed in New York?”

You purse your lips, not having thought about that. “Maybe it’s because I wasn’t on fire when I got the wound? Or, it could be because I pressed against it that it cauterized.”

Brooke shrugs and pulls you in for another hug. “I’m just glad you’re safe. And not Hydra.” She pulls away and says, “Well, I have to go figure out what to do now that S.H.I.E.L.D. is gone, but keep me updated, okay?”

You smile and nod. “I will.”

She turns and walks down the hall, and before you go back into the room, you pull your phone out.  
 __  
Hey, can u do me a favor?

_Iron Can: What’s up?_

_I have a friend who recently lost her job… I’ll send over references if you could look them over?_

_Iron Can: I’ll see what I can do_

_Thanks Tony, ur the best_  
  
You walk back into the room and lock eyes with Steve, whose face lights up as he smiles at you.

“Steve! You're awake!” you say, a smile growing on your own face.

“I guess I am,” he says, and he already looks better than when you found him on the river bank. “Thanks to increased healing, I guess.”

“I’m just glad you’re okay,” you say, sitting back down next to him. “I don’t know how you’d be if I hadn’t found you when I did.”

“Well, thanks for that,” he says, but then the doctors swarm in to check on him, shooing both you and Sam out of the room, waiting again on Steve.


	50. Ghost Hunting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I've finally broken my writer's block on this fic for a bit, so hopefully I can get more chapters written! I don't want to get too close to Infinity War before Endgame comes out though, because that could change anything I have planned for Infinity War. Hopefully I'll at least get through Age of Ultron before then :), the ending's going to be great

You and Sam take Steve back to Sam’s house once the doctors say he can leave. You both knew going back to his place would be a bad idea, and Sam was happy to offer his spare room. Then Fury’s fake funeral happened, and Natasha gave Steve a file he’s been obsessing over.  
_  
Squawk: Please (Y/N) I need u 2 come over_

_Why?_

_Squawk: Hes not eating or sleeping a lot, obsessing over that stupid folder. U might talk some sense into him_

_Be there in 20_  
  
In the fight at the triskelion your car was destroyed, so you have to take a bus to get to Sam’s house. You get there right on time and ting the doorbell, only waiting a few seconds before Sam swings the door open.

“Finally,” he says, sounding exhausted. “I’ve been trying to get him to stop all morning and get some sleep, but he’s not listening.”

You gesture to Sam, saying, “Lead the way.”

You follow him into the kitchen, where Steve is sitting with his back towards you, hunched over with papers scattered all over the table.

“Hey Steve,” you say, startling him. 

He turns around with a tired smile, stubble creeping up his jaw. “Hey, (Y/N). What are you doing here?”

“Sam invited me over. Said you haven’t been sleeping or eating.” You sit down in the chair next to him.

He sighs and says, “Yeah, I guess. It’s just – he was my only friend before the war. He was one of my only friends during the war. And because I didn’t save him, he fell into the ravine and got turned into a brainwashed Hydra lackey.”

Sam turns away and walks into the kitchen.

“Look, Steve, that wasn’t your fault. There was no way you could have known about it. You broke him out of it, and now he needs time to himself to remember. You probably felt disoriented when you came out of the ice, right? He probably feels the same way, if not worse. Give him some time alone and focus on your health; we can look for him in our spare time.”

Steve looks down at the scattered papers. “You haven’t read these papers though. You don’t know what they did to him.”

“Then let me,” you say, covering Steve’s hand with yours. “If you let Sam and I help you for a bit today, will you promise me you’ll get some sleep?”

Steve looks up at you and says, “Okay. I will. I promise.”

“Sam?” you say, moving your hand off of Steve’s. “Do you happen to have a corkboard?”

“Yeah, there’s one with wheels downstairs,” he answers. “Why?”

“Steve?”

He nods and understands what your plan is. He goes downstairs and not long after returns with the corkboard, carrying it effortlessly into the room and setting it down next to the wall.

Sam comes back into the room carrying plates of snacks. Steve diligently picks up a handful as he lets you explain your idea.

“We can go through the file, together, and pin what might help us find him to the board. Anything else will stay in the file, and the file will not be opened again. Understood?”

Steve nods, his mouth too full to speak.

Together, the three of you read through the files, Sam resupplying snacks as Steve eats his way through them all. When a particular page seems to be rough for Steve, you move through it quickly, but spend time on the other ones to make sure you don’t miss anything that may be important.

It takes a few hours to go through everything, but you have a decent amount of things on the board now, so you replace the items in the folder and tape it to the back of the corkboard so it’s not lost. 

“Now, sleep?” you say to Steve, catching him mid-yawn.

“Sleep,” he agrees, and heads upstairs.

Sam shakes his head once Steve disappears at the top of the stairs, starting to clean up the mess of snacks Steve left in his wake. “I don’t understand.”

“What?” you ask, helping Sam clean up.

“There’s something special about you. I told Steve basically everything you did, and he wouldn’t listen. Multiple times. When he got to the hobo looking phase I thought, hell, trying to get you to help was worth a shot, and you got him to do everything by only asking once.”

You shrug. “I don’t have an answer for that.”

Sam frowns before asking, “Do you like him?”

“What kind of question is that? He’s my friend.”

“Friends that conveniently go on museum dates together?” Sam says, raising an eyebrow.

“What is that supposed to mean? We were hanging out.”

“You’re growing red,” Sam comments before moving to the kitchen. 

Flustered, you follow him as you stammer, “Well who wouldn’t like him, he’s Captain America!”

“No, he’s not,” Sam says. “Not to you. He’s always been Steve to you.”

You roll your eyes and cross your arms. “Okay, so maybe I do, a little. But he was the one that asked me to the museum, so I don’t think that counts.”

“Unless he likes you too.”

You laugh, saying, “Sure, someone like Steve would like me.”

Sam shrugs. “You never know unless you ask.”

You ignore him, saying, “I’m going to head back home now that he’s asleep. Let me know when he’s up again?”

Sam nods, letting you escape the conversation to go home.

Eighteen hours later, you get a text from him.  
_  
Squawk: Guess whos finally awake_

_Squawk: And he shaved!_  
  
Attached is a picture taken in the bathroom of Steve with a sleepy smile on his face and a thumbs up, bits of shaving cream still under his chin. If you smile fondly at the picture before saving it to your phone, well, no one needs to know.


	51. Meet The Family

_  
Bow N Sparrow: Nat caught me up on what happened in DC_

_Bow N Sparrow: Sounds like it was rough for all of you_

_Bow N Sparrow: I think you could use a break_

_Could I ever. Been babysitting Steve a lot cause of Bucky, but hes off to the tower now_

_Bow N Sparrow: Come with me in my quinjet, take a break_

_And where are we headed, my feathered friend?_

_Bow N Sparrow: First of all, ouch. Second, I cant say_

_Well why would I come if I don’t know where?_

_Bow N Sparrow: It’s relaxing_

_Bow N Sparrow: It’s still in the us?_

_Bow N Sparrow: Fine, it’s my house_

_Wow, all of that to ask me to come to ur house. I guess I will, not like I’m doing anything else_

_Bow N Sparrow: Cool, meet me at Reagan?_

_Be there in an hour, gotta pack  
_  
Public transportation takes longer than you thought it would but luckily being an Avenger get’s you past the airport lines quickly, so you still arrive within an hour. The quinjet is already open, so you step on in.

“Come on in and we can get going, strap your bag in and take the co-pilot chair.”

As you strap your bag in so it doesn’t move around as you fly, you ask, “There’s a co-pilot chair in a quinjet?”

“Some of them, and this happens to be one of them.”

You climb up front and strap yourself in as Clint closes the ramp and starts the engines. Once it gets to the right altitude, he sets it on autopilot and turns towards you.

“So, how’s Steve doing after finding out about his friend?”

“Not so good. Sam, someone who Steve met and I guess has now unofficially joined the team, has been housing him since Bucky kind of shot Fury through the wall in Steve’s apartment. He isn’t listening when Sam tells him to eat or sleep, so I have to go over there all the time because he would listen to me. Now that he’s at the tower I hope someone else can get him to eat and sleep. Is Nat there?”

Clint nods. “Yeah, she’ll take care of him. Knock him out if that’s what it takes.”

“So, care to tell me why you live somewhere not in a major city?” you ask Clint, changing the subject to try to get more information out of him.

“I asked Fury to help me out with it, keep a safe place hidden and off the record. You’ll see why when we get there.”

“You're being so mysterious,” you say with a smile. “I’m assuming Nat knows at least?”

“Of course. And since when has she been Nat to you?”

“We just took down a government organization together after being on the run from the same organization together for a while. I think I get to call her Nat.”

Clint tilts his head and looks to the side. “If she tries to hurt you for it, that’s on you.”

You roll your eyes. The rest of the flight the two of you fall into a light conversation until you get close enough to Clint’s house that he has to take it off of autopilot to land. 

Once the quinjet is on the ground, you go and untie your bag. Clint joins you at the ramp it lowers to reveal…

“A farm?” you ask him, confused.

“Yep. This is home.”

“I didn’t take you for the farm kind of guy,” you say. “As a spy and all, I imagine a large penthouse with lots of windows.”

“Ex-spy,” he comments. “S.H.I.E.L.D. is gone now, remember?”

“Yeah yeah, whatever.”

You follow Clint out of the jet and through the property, up to the large wood farmhouse.

“Wow, you got this big of a place all to yourself?”

Clint glances back at you with a smirk, saying, “Well, not exactly.” He reaches out for the door handle and opens it, not needing to unlock it. You follow him in as he says, “Honey?”

You stop in shock in the doorway as a pregnant woman comes into the entryway; Clint wraps her up in his arms and kisses her. 

“You’re married…” you say in shock, then start connecting the dots. “You haven’t told anyone and you had Fury keep it off of the books… to protect your family?”

Clint smiles and nods at you as he lets go of his wife. She extends her hand to you, saying, “I’m Laura.”

“(Y/N),” you say, shaking her hand.

A loud noise that sounds like a stampede comes from somewhere in the house and two kids come running into the room, screaming “Daddy!”

Clint is then attacked by the two kids in hugs, and you finally move to shut the door behind you. 

“This is Lila,” Clint tells you, referencing the little girl around his neck. “And this one is Cooper,” he says as he ruffles the young boy's hair. 

They both give you a polite “Hi” before running off into the house again. Laura has also already left to go back to what she was doing.

“Hey, Clint. Thanks,” you say, adjusting your bag on your shoulder.

He gestures with his head to follow him upstairs, then says, “Why?”

“For trusting me.”

He smiles. “You’re my friend, (Y/N). Of course I trust you. And that’s a big feat, because my friend list is definitely small.”

“That’s what happens in this line of work,” you reply, sighing.

Clint takes you to one of the guest rooms and you drop your bag before going back downstairs. 

“Come on; let me show you the farm.”

You and Clint spend the rest of the day outside as he gives you a tour, his kids coming over every now and then. The highlight of your day was the chicken pen.

“You have a chicken named for each of us?” you laugh.

“Yep. And then when one of you gets annoying, your chicken becomes our dinner and I have to get a replacement.”

“Who’s been eaten the most?”

“Tony. I feel like it’s becoming a weekly thing for him.”

You laugh again and ask, “Who’s been replaced the least?”

“I haven’t replaced Nat yet. She could never annoy me.” He lowers his voice before continuing, “Even if she did annoy me, I’d be scared of what would happen if I killed her chicken.”

You giggle but then realize, “Wait, you’ve killed my chicken?!”

“Why are you so surprised? Have you forgotten the day at the obstacle course?” *

“Oh come on, that was not worth killing my chicken over.”

“Maybe to you. Why are you so offended by a chicken anyway?”

“Because you named it after me!”

After that Lila came out to see why you were arguing, and you had to tell her you were just joking. 

Dinner time comes around and Lila sits you down next to her at the table as Clint and Laura get the food ready.

“Can you do magic?” she asks, eyes bright.

“Kind of,” you say, not wanting to disappoint her. When she looks up at you expectantly, you look around and see a candle alight on the table. 

“Don’t try this yourself,” you warn, reaching out to the candle and picking up the flame with your fingers.

Lila gasps and claps excitedly, drawing the attention of her brother, who appears on the other side of her. 

The flame dances on your fingertips, so you start to move it, weaving the flame in and out of your fingers. 

“Okay children, stop playing with fire, we’re about to eat,” Clint says as he carries a dish of chicken in, a playful look in his eyes. 

You stick your tongue out at him and return the flame to the candle, weaving it through your fingers one last time and letting it fall off of your pinky and back onto the wick. Lila and Cooper clap for you and you give a small bow for it.

“This isn’t me, is it?” you ask Clint, turning your attention to the food being set on the table. 

“Nope. It’s Thor. The one you met earlier was his replacement.”

You laugh. “What did he do for this?”

“He ate all of my food the other day, and Tony wouldn’t get any more because he thinks it’s gross.”

You shake your head and then Laura joins you at the table, everyone sitting down and enjoying the well-cooked food. 

After dinner, Clint declares, “And now time for dessert – smores!” He takes his plate into the kitchen and pulls out a bag full of marshmallows, chocolate, and graham crackers. 

“We don’t have a fire going yet, and that’ll take too long. The kids will have to go to bed before the fire is ready,” Laura says, and the kids proclaim their disappointment. 

Clint’s smile doesn’t falter though. “We don’t need to wait! Come on kids, help me set the fire up!”

You roll your eyes, knowing what Clint has in mind, as Lila and Cooper cheer and follow Clint out of the house, all three of them running. You get up and follow after them, knowing Clint can’t finish his plan without you.

Clint is uncovering the fire pit and the kids are collecting wood to fill it with. Laura joins you and the two of you watch the others, and it’s not long before they are finished.

“(Y/N), will you do the honors?” Clint asks, gesturing you towards the fire with a wave of his hand and a small bow.

You sigh and pick up one of the logs out of the top of the pit. Concentrating on keeping the fire only in your hand, the log starts to smoke before it and your hand ignites, engulfed in flames. The kids watch in awe as you move the log to put it back on the fire. Instead of placing it in, you drop it and make the fire grow, creating a small explosion as the fire races to catch hold of all the other logs. The kids clap, and then Clint produces arrows he made specifically for roasting marshmallows.

The kids share exciting stories they’ve made up as you all eat your fill of smores until Laura takes them inside to put them to bed, leaving you and Clint by the dying flames.

“Thanks for bringing me out here,” you say, pulling the ingredients out for one last smore.

“Of course. You definitely needed it.” As you build the smore, Clint asks, “Aren’t you going to toast the marshmallow first?”

“I don’t need to.” You hold the completed smore in your palm and a small fire quickly engulfs the smore, vanishing almost as quickly as it appeared. The marshmallow and chocolate are perfectly melted, and the graham cracker is even toasted now. 

Clint chuckles and starts to clean up as you finish the last smore, after which you extinguish the fire and then head back upstairs to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * see Chapter 39: Training Tomfoolery


	52. Tranquil Tower

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oml I feel like I haven't posted in here for forever! This is what I get for starting multiple projects at once.  
> I have tickets for endgame for next thursday so I'm hoping once I go die there in the theater I can hash out the rest of the story and want to try to bang this out over summer break and get it finished! I'm a bit swamped with homework at the moment being that it's almost the end of the semester but I hope you'll all stick around to whenever I finally reach the end!

You spend a few days at Clint's farmhouse, getting to know the kids and his wife. It's strange to think that he's had a secret life all this time that no one knew about. Well, except Natasha. The two of you leave when Tony calls and asks for you both to meet at the tower. Needless to say, he was a little shocked to hear you were both together.

Clint flies the quinjet back, and Tony promises he has clothes for you waiting since you hadn't packed much to go to Clint's in the first place. There's a launchpad at the tower, so Clint lands there and the two of you get off together, laughing at a bad joke Clint made.

"Nice to see the two of you get along well," Tony says as a greeting when you get off of the quinjet. "Remind me, Clint, how did you end up with a quinjet?"

Clint shrugs. "I stole it. S.H.I.E.L.D. was falling, so technically it doesn't belong to anyone, so I took it."

Tony shakes his head and rolls his eyes.

Behind him, inside the tower, you see Steve walk by, so you wave to him. He waves back, but something seems off about it. You'll have to find him later and ask why.

"Well, (Y/N), I thought you should know that there's someone here who wants to see you," Tony says as you all walk in together.

"Someone's here? To see me?"

"No guesses?" Tony says with a smirk. "Well then, I guess this will be a great surprise, won't it?"

Clint beelines for the kitchen as Tony leads you to the elevators. Jarvis takes the two of you down to one of the lower levels, and the door opens to reveal a lab floor.

"(Y/N)!" comes a loud voice from next to you as you step off of the elevator, and you get ambushed by a side hug.

"Woah, hey Brooke!" you say with a laugh, steadying yourself so the both of you don't fall over. "What are you doing here?"

"I hired her," Tony says as Brooke lets go of you, smiling. "You sent me her information and asked if I could help find her a new job. I looked through the information myself, and thought she was just who I was looking for to work here in the lab with me."

"I can't thank you enough for sending him my information," Brooke says, laughing. "I thought I was going to be stuck going to some kind of stupid place, like Hammer Tech."

"That still exists?" Tony says, shocked. "I thought Hammer was arrested."

She shrugs. "Maybe he got out? Maybe someone else took the company over? I don't know, I sent an application in, but you offered the job here before they could even answer so I didn't meet with anyone."

"I'll have to look into that," Tony says, then walks off to do who knows what.

"So, have you met everyone?" you ask Brooke.

"Everyone as in the other Avengers? Uh, yeah, my first day. I almost fainted when Captain Rogers remembered my name; it was certainly an experience."

"Speaking of Steve," you say, trailing off. "I hate to leave you, but something seemed wrong with him earlier. I hope he's not moping around about Bucky again. You mind if I go track him down?"

"No, go ahead, I have to get back to work anyway. You know where to find me if you want to come visit me though! Well, I guess technically Jarvis knows where I am if you want to come visit me, but you get the point."

You leave her with another hug and ask Jarvis to take you to wherever Steve is. He lets you off back on the top floor, where Steve is playing pool by himself.

"Mind if I join?" you ask as he sets the balls up.

"Oh, uh, sure," he says, not having heard you come over.

You take a cue stick and chalk up the end of it while Steve lines up his first shot. Once he splits the triangle up, you look around the table for the right angle to find and start a conversation. "Any luck on finding Bucky?"

"Nope," he says in a cool tone. "There was security footage with him on it at the Smithsonian, but we found out about it way too late to go and get any leads from it."

"The Smithsonian? Did he go to your exhibit?" You shoot the ball, but you don't sink anything from that shot.

"Yep." Steve starts to line up another shot.

"Is it bothering you that you can't find him?"

"No, why would you ask?" He shoots the ball and manages to sink his first ball. 

"I don't know, something just seems off with you today, ever since I got off of the quinjet."

He shrugs, and the conversation dies for a while, the two of you playing pool in silence. Steve is the one that starts it back up, saying, "So you and Clint seem pretty close, huh?"

"Well, he was the first one on the team I really became friends with; we met all the way back before you were unfrozen during Thor's first trip here." Was that a hint of jealousy in his voice?

"Is that why the two of you were together when Tony called you?"

"Yeah, we were just hanging out. Why, does that bother you?"

"No, not at all," he says, hitting the cue ball a little forcefully and not sinking anything.

"We're not a thing if that's why you're asking," you state nonchalantly as you start to line up a shot.

"I don't care what you do in your free time," he says, but he seems to be a little more relaxed than he was the whole game.

The conversation and the game die there though as Jarvis broadcasts a message over the loudspeaker, saying, "A new Hydra base has been located. Get ready; the team will be leaving in ten."


End file.
